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SUGGESTIONS 



ON 



V 



TEACHERS' INSTITUTES. 



BY WILLIAM RUSSELL, 

IDITOR OF THE AMEillCAN JOURNAL OF EDUCATION, — FIRST SERIES. 




BOSTON: 

TAPPAN, WHITTEMORE & MASON 
No. 114 "Washington Street. 

1848. 





Qass. 
Book. 



■ivrv^' 



SUGGESTIONS 



ON 



TEACHERS' INSTITUTES 



SUGGESTIONS 



ON 



TEACHERS' INSTITUTES. 



in^j 



BY WILLIAM RUSSELL, 

EDITOR OF THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF EDUCATION, FIRST SERIES. 



]i'l^ 



BOSTON: 

TAPPAN, WHITTEMORE & MASON, 

No. 1 14 Washing-ton Street. 

1848. 






fon^^ 



V 



Entered according to Act ol Congress, in the year 1S4S, 

By William Russell, 

In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of Massachusetts. 



By Transf^^ 

NUV 1 6 '^2§ 






C5 



ADVERTISEMENT. 



The following suggestions were prepared at the request of persons oc- 
cupied in the management of teachers' institutes. The writer's design 
was to offer such hints as might facilitate the establishment of these 
highly useful and extensively popular institutions, in places where they 
have not yet been introduced, and serve, at the same time, as an aid to 
regularity of procedure, where they are already in operation. The for- 
mer of these objects rendered indispensable a full statement of many 
things long since familiar to those who have been engaged in the super- 
intendence of institutes ; and the latter called for a minute detail of 
many particulars, the value of which may, at first view, appear slight, 
but which are essential to the practical working of a teachers' institute. 

The suggestions contained in the following pages, are derived from 
several years' experience in attending institute sessions, in various parts 
of New England. The minuter details proposed, with regard to matters 
of routine, correspond, in part, to those of the meetings of the Rhode 
Island Institute of Instruction, conducted by the Hon. Henry Barnard, 
State Commissioner of Schools, for Rhode Island, and in part, to those of 
the Teachers' Institute of Hillsborough County, New Hampshire. They 
will be found, however, it is hoped, to present whatever is important to 
the conducting of an institute, in any quarter where the friends of edu- 
cation are desirous to see one organized. 

In the appendix are presented various examples of the forms adopted, 
in some instances, in arranging and expediting the business of institute 
meetings. To persons not versed in these matters, such documents may 
serve as models of procedure, in the preliminary steps towards the forma- 
tion of an institute, and as aids to despatch, in subsequent details of ar- 
rangement, connected with the methods of instruction and modes of ex- 
ercise usually adopted in teachers' institutes. 



CONTENTS 



Page. 

ORIGIN of Teachers' Institutes, 9 

Their CHAKACTER and DESIGN, 9 

They do not supersede academies, 9 

Are not substitutes for normal 

schools, - - - - 10 

Are not superseded by either, - 10 

Their immediate uses, - - 10 

Their efiects on schools, - - 10 
Their efiects on the community, 

and on education, - - 11 

Their eflects on teachers, - - 11 

Their efi^ects on pupils, - - 11 

Testimony to their good elFects, 12 
PLACES for holding the sessions of 

an institute, - - - - 12 
Disadvantages of cities or large 

towns and small villages, - 12 
Proper situation, - - - 12 
Advantages of circulating, - - 13 
TIME for sessions and business, 14 
Duration and frequency of sessions, 14 
General allotment of time, - 15 
Difl'erent portions of the day, - 15 
Daily subdivision of time, - 16 
Forenoon Session, - - - 16 
8°.— 8* 20'. Opening Exercises, 16 
8* 20'.— 8^ 40'. Occasional busi- 
ness, miscellaneous Questions, 
or extemporaneous Address, 16 
8* 40'.— 9« 40'. Lecture, - 18 
9* 40'.— 9» 50'. Recess, - - 18 
9« 50'.— lO'^ 50'. Lecture, or Di- 
vision Exercise, - - - 19 
10^50'.— 11^. Recess, - - 19 
11^.-12''. Lecture, - - 19 
First day of a session, - - - 20 
8*^20'.— 8^40'. Preparatorj^ bus- 
iness, 20 

8^ 40'.— 9*= 40'. Preparatory bus- 
iness, 20 

9* 50'.— lO'^ 50'. Preparatory 

business, reports, &c., - 20 
1 1*^, — 12°. Preparatory business, 

or Lecture, - - - - 21 



Pa^e. 

Afternoon Session, - - - 21 
1-^ 30'.— 1*^ 40'. Miscellaneous 

business, - - - - 21 
lo 40'.— 2'^ 40'. Lecture, or Di- 
vision Exercise, - - - 21 
2© 40'.— 2^ 50'. Recess, - . 22 
2° 50' .—3'' 50'. Lecture, or Di- 
vision Exercise, - - - 22 
3«50'.— 4"^. Recess, - - - 22 
4*^. — 4*^ 55'. Lecture, or Division 

Exercise, - - - - 22 
4" 55'. — 5*^. Announcement for 
evening, and hymn, - - 22 
Evening Sesision. - - - 23 
-yo — ^7" 10'. Devotional Exerci- 
ses, 23 

7° 10'.— S'' 10'. Lecture, - 23 
8^ 10'.— 8*=^ 15'. Music, - - 23 
8" 15'.— 9*^ 15'. Conversation, or 
Discussion, - - - - 24 
ORGANIZATION OF TEACH- 
ERS' INSTITUTES, - - 25 
County Institutes, - - - 25 
Town Associations, - - - 25 
State Institutes, - - - 26 

Officers, 26 

The President, - - - 26 

Vice-presidents, &c., - - - 27 

Corresponding Secretary, - 28 

Recording Secretary, - - - 28 
Duty of Directors to organize 

Town Associations, - - 28 
Committees, - - - - 28 
Committee of Reception, - 28 
Committee of Arrangements, - 29 
Their duty of receiving and ac- 
commodating members, - 29 
Inviting and waiting on visitors, 30 
Obligations of visitors, - - 30 
The procuring of a hall, &c., 31 
Rxcursions, - - - - 31 
Publication of a list of members, 31 
Monitors of Punctuality, - 32 
Monitor of time, - - '33 
Duty as to promptness, - 33 



8 



CONTENTS. 



Page. 

Providing of bells and a timepiece, 34 
Monitors of neatness, - - - 35 

Their duties, - - - - 35 

Duty cf the male monitor, to 
make full pro^-ision for the 
means of cleanliness, 

Duties of the monitress, as re- 
gards matters of taste. 
Class Instructors, 

Their appointment, 

First duty, 

Information to substitutes, 

Number of class instructors. 

Preparation for lecturing and 
teaching, . - - - 

Alternation of lectures and prac- 
tical exercises, ... 

Model class of young pupils, - 

Necessity of dwellmg on ele- 
ments, 

Selection of class instructors, 

Objections to the employment of 
class members as class instruc- 
tors, 41 



Page. 

Apprenticeship to teaching, - 42 

Preparation and plan of lectures, 42 
Style of lectures, - - - * 42 

Manner of lecturing, - - - 43 

Means of securing attention, - 43 

Answers to questions, - - 44 

Division exercises, - - - 44 

DrHling, 44 

Recapitulation, - - - 45 
Oral and v^'rilten statements, - 45 
Aid iw answering questions, - 45 
Class Members, - - - - 46 
Their duties, - - - - 46 
Punctuahty and regularity of at- 
tendance, - - - - 46 
Uniform attention to instruction 

and exercises, - - - 47 

Deportment, - ... 48 

Social communication, - - 49 

INFLUENCE OF INSTITUTES, 50 

APPENDIX, - ... 53 

Forms of Business, &c. - - 53 



» 



SUGGESTIONS 



TEACHERS' INSTITUTES. 



ORIGIN OF TEACHERS' INSTITUTES. 

First Meeting for the purpose of an Institute. — No event in the his- 
tory of education in the United States, has proved so fruitful in good 
consequences, as the successful attempt to originate temporary schools 
for teachers. The friends of education, in the city of Hartford, are 
entitled to the credit of having been the first to hold a session for this 
purpose. Meetings of a similar character, soon became general in 
other parts of the Union, but, more particularly, in the State of New 
York, where they were first designated by their present name, — 
Teachers' Institutes. 

CHARACTER AND DESIGN OF THESE INSTITUTI0:NS. 

Institutes do not supersede Academies. — The special purpose of the 
meetings of an institute, is, to serve as a temporary local school for 
the instruction of teachers. The brief course of lectures and exerci- 
ses, on such occasions, is not intended to supersede a course of aca- 
demic instrucfion, or of regular training to the vocation of teaching; 
wliether that training be had in a special class at an academy, or in 
the more regular forms of professional education at a normal school. 
A teachers' institute proposes to its students a concise course of in- 
struction in the theory and practice of teaching, adapted to common 
schools. It comprehends, necessarily, a practical review of the branches 
of education usually taught in such schools, and so secures, in part^ 
the advantage of direct instruction in these branches, to all its classes. 
But this review is unavoidably rapid and superficial, and can never 
supply the place of a thorough-going course of instruction in any sul> 
ject. The lectures and exeicises of an institute, involve an outline 
view of subjects, in the training of teachers to the proper modes of 
communicating instruction in them ; and, thus far, they allow oppor- 
tunity of presenting, in addition to the information contained in text 
books, not only the recent items of intelligence regarding the progress 
of knowledge, in particular departments of science, but, likewise, the 
systems and methods of eminent authorities and teachers, respecting 
the best methods of giving instruction in every department. To this 
extent, teachers' institutes offer peculiar advantages. But they pre- 
suppose a previous and well-laid foundation of knowledge acquired 
elsewhere. 

1 



10 

Institutes are not substitutes for Normal Schools. — Nor can these insti- 
tutes ever serve all the purposes of an adequate education of teachers 
to the business of their profession. Teaching is, confessedly, one of 
the most difficult of arts. The talent for it is rare ; and the training 
for it ought to be, and now is, in most enlightened communities, pecu- 
liar and comparatively extensive. But the session of an institute is 
necessarily brief, held merely for a few weeks, at most, immediately 
preceding the annual opening of schools for their respective seasons, 
in spring and autumn, or in winter ; and they are, even then, resorted 
to by individuals principally occupied in other pursuits, previous to 
the opening of the session. The process of preparatory training, in 
such cases is, at best, like that brief one of forced work, by which 
the raw recruit is, on an emergency, hurried into the ranks of a vete- 
ran army. A hasty and imperfect drilling is then made to serve in- 
stead of months of deliberate preparation. The course thus adopted 
is not one of choice but of urgent necessit}\ It could never be recom- 
mended as a customary procedure. 

Institutes are not superseded by Academies or by Normal Schools. — A 
teachers' institute, however, while it can not accomplish the work of 
permanent professional schools, and can never interfere with the use- 
fulness of such institutions, or do away the necessity of their exist- 
ence, is by no means superseded by them. The institute which is 
most useful to the interests of education, is, uniformly, that at which 
are assembled the largest number of students who have been trained 
at a normal school. It is an opportunity of benefit, not merely to such 
teachers as have not themselves enjoyed the privilege of professional 
training, but to the graduates of normal schools themselves. It elicits 
the best thoughts and best acquirements of such individuals, and 
throws them inio the common stock of professional attainment. Never 
will the benefit of normal schools be so fully felt as when the auspi- 
cious day shall come, that shall exhibit an institute composed of teach- 
ers who have all been pupils of such schools. Our institute meetings 
will then resemble the professional associations of the practitioners of 
the medical art, on occasions when the lecturer of half a life-time pre- 
sents to his brethren the richest accumulations and choicest conclu- 
sions of such a period of observation, experience, reflection, reading, 
and practice. 

Immediate uses of Institute Meetings. — Teachers' institutes serve, in 
the meantime, the admirable purpose of furnishing society with teach- 
ers who, if they have not been systematically trained to the work of 
their profession, through successive years, are ready to enter the field 
of labor with, at least, a degree of preparation such as greatly tran- 
scends the measure of the past. And should the favor of the people, 
throughout the United States, continue to muUiply and sustain these 
useful institutions, so that all who are engaged in the duties of instruc- 
tion should regularly receive even one month's training, every year, 
an immense improvement in the condition and character of common 
schools, universally, would necessarily be the result. 

Effect of Institutes on Schools. — Teachers' institutes have, in the vast 
majority of instances, been producUve of immediate, substantial, and 



BENEFITS. 11 

extensive benefit, in the improved condition of schools in those regions 
where they have been established, and particularly so in those where 
they have been put on a permanent footing. Few have, as yet, been 
held, anywhere, but under the guidance of capable and skilful in- 
structors. The most eminent men, in other professions besides that of 
instruction, have also generously rallied to the aid of education, as a 
common interest. In most places, institutes have, by the liberality of 
the State, or of the people themselves, acting more directly, been en- 
abled to command the services of the ablest instructors in every de- 
partment of education. The students of institutes have, accordingly, 
received the most exact and extensive training which was practicable 
within a limited period. They have been impelled to the most stren- 
uous exertions for their own improvement, and have gone out to their 
duties, as teachers, with a truer insight into their art, a deeper interest 
in its results, and a conscious accumulation of resources, which have 
made their daily labor a scene of pleasure, because one of success. 

Effects on the Community and on Education. — The sessions of insti- 
tutes have been pioductive, likewise, of the best effects, in bringing 
the teachers' labors more prominently before the community, and con- 
ducing to the general formation of a higher estimation of their value, 
from a truer perception of their nature and results, as these affect the 
character of individuals and the welfare of society. The mingling of 
parents, on such occasions, with teachers and committees, has excited, 
in the minds of the first, a warmer interest in the intellectual and 
moral guardians of their children, and a readiness to listen, with favor, 
to broader views of education, and better modes of teaching, than 
were formerly current. The doors of improvement have thus been 
effectually thrown open ; and the advancement of education encoun- 
ters no stop. Had institute meetings effected no farther good than that 
of deepening the interest of parents in the education of their children, 
their benefits would have been incalculable. 

Effect on Teachers. — But teachers themselves have also been exten- 
sive partakers in the good results of these institutions. An institute is 
of itself a recognition of instruction as not merely an employment, 
but a "profession," — an occupation for which candidates must now 
profess certain qualifications. In the establishment of an institute, a 
teacher sees the dignity of his vocation acknowledged. This single 
circumstance is a new call upon his ambition. He aspires to the true 
rank of worth in his profession, and addresses himself with fresh in- 
terest and zeal to its exhausting but honorable toils. 

Effect on Pupils. — There is yet another class of society who are ten- 
fold gainers by the action of teachers' institutes, — the children at 
school, — the budding hope of every community. Observe where an 
institute session has been held, and you will see keener eyes and 
brighter faces, in the juvenile rows of the schoolroom. The happy 
impulse given to the teacher's mind, at the institute session, tells on 
his daily teaching and government. His work has been rendered 
lighter and pleasanter to him, in all directions, than before. He has 
learned how, better than ever, to succeed in kindling the young mind 
to ardor in the pursuit of learning : he keeps the minds of his pupils 



12 teachers' institutes. 

pleasingly employed, as 'the bee amid the flowers of summer : dili- 
gence and cheerful industry are the habits of his mental hive :, appli- 
cation has become an intense pleasure : idleness and misconduct have 
been displaced by a genial preventive regimen : morbid reactioUj with 
its legion of pains and penalties, is unknown, alike to teacher and 
pupil. The teacher has, in a word, become a skilful and a successful 
man in his pursuit : he loves it and all connected with it. He w^orks 
strenuously and with delight ; and the hours and successive days of 
school life, pass, in consequence, pleasantly with the young.* 

Testimony to the good effects of institutes. — But to enlarge, in this 
day, on the benefits attending teachers' institutes, is unnecessary. 
The uniform testimony, from all places where they exist, is too loud 
in their favor to require additional attestation from any individual. 
Were it otherwise, nothing could be easier than to fill i\p successive 
pages with the opinions of the highest official authorities, on this point, 
in all those parts of the Union where institutes have been held, and 
where Slate officers of education exist.f 

But the design of the present publication will be better served by 
proceeding, at once, to a brief exposition of the actual operation and 
business of a teachers' institute, as conducted in those instances under 
the writer's observation, in which the objects of such an association 
seem to have been most fully accomplished. 

PLACES OF MEETING. 

Disadvantages of cities or large towns, and of small villages. — It has^ 
on due trial, been found advisable to avoid the extremes of two very 
different locations for an institute, — large towns and small villages. 
The former are unsuitable^ equally, from the difficulty of securing, in 
Buch circumstances, the seclusion and undivided attention requisite, as 
conditions of close attention and effective application to study, and that 
of exemplifying in cities modes of instruction and exercise adapted to 
district schools, — the main aim of a teachers' institute. Villages, on 
the other hand, of very limited size, are, for the most part, not ade- 
quately furnished with convenient buildings, or arrangements adapted 
to the instruction of large classes. — not to speak of the iireat difficulty 
of procuring the requisite accommodations for even the temporary 
reception of the number of persons usually assembled at an institute, 
and to whom it is important to have their lodging-place situated near 
to the building in which they are to attend their meetings. 

Proper Situation for an institute session. — The most favorable situa- 
tion for holding an institute, is a place which is naturally free from the 



*A titlie of the instances which the writer could enumerate, in the above con- 
nection, would fill a volume. 

tSee the able and eloquent reports of the Hon. Horace Mann, Secretary of the 
Massachusetts Board of Education ; of the Hon. Henry Barnard, Slate Commis- 
sioner of Schools for Rhode Island ; of Professor Haddock, and the Rev. Mr. Rust» 
in the same olfice in the State of New Hampshire ; and of the Stale and county 
superintendents of education, in New York. 



PLACES OF MEETING. 13 

two extremes of disadvantage which have just been mentioned. The 
preference, otherwise, is in favor of a village or town containing an 
academy accessible to the institute. The advantage of a hall and 
class-rooms of sufficient dimensions for the health, convenience, and 
comfort of the members of numerous classes, is thus secured. The 
lecturers and instructors are, also, thus properly accommodated, 
and enabled to conduct their various operations effectively, and with 
despatch. The desks, the writing materials, the black-board, and the 
other apparatus of the academy, are found, on such occasions, invalu- 
able aids to both teachers and taught. It forms an additional recom- 
mendation of a place, with reference to the holding of an institute, if 
it contains a meeting-house, or other edifice, sufficiently large to 
accommodate the evening meetings, at which it is customary to have 
a numerous attendance of parents^^and other members of the commu- 
nity, to partake occasionally in the conversation, discussions, or other 
business of the hour, and to enjoy the pleasure of listening to lectures 
of a more generally interesting and popular character than those whicji 
occupy the hours of the day, and are designed more particularly for 
the professional purposes of teachers.* 

Advantages of circulating. — While it is a matter indispensable that 
institutes should be held in places where proper conveniences can be 
enjoyed, it is not less a requisite to their success, that they be not con- 
fined to one spot for their meetings. It is important to their prosperity, 
in every point of view, that they be brought fully before the whole 
people, in every part of the country. They must be rendered easily 
accessible, so far as may be, to every parent who is willing to make a 
reasonable exertion to attend them. Nor does it, in this respect, make 
any difference whether the state, the county, or the neighborhood, 
furnish the means of maintaining institutes. The policy of the 
teacher, and of the friend or guardian of education, and the interest 
of the parent and of his children, are, in all cases, one and the same, 
on this point. We must appropriate and accumulate, before we 
can diffuse, and that we may diffuse. In the unselfish relations of 
education, it is, happily, the fact, that we cannot do the former without 
doing the latter. Mind is radiant. All intellectual advantages are so 
many reflecUng surfaces ; the moment you can say '- they are mine," 
that moment you begin to act on them, and transfuse them into your 
relations to others. 

In those instances in which a preference may be justlv clainied by 
a given place, in consequence of liberal expenditure, with a view to 
secure the advantages attending the session of an institute, such prefe- 
rence must, of course, be recognized. But the wide diffusion of the 
benefits of improved education, being the great end of teachers' 
institutes, the more widely these insfitutes circulate, within their proper 
sphere of county, or other definite region, the more surely will such 
benefits be realized. 

Another argument^ and one of a different character, ought not, in 

*A town hall, though less convenient than an academy, is, sometimes, made to 
serve the purpose of institute meetings. 
1# 



14 

this matter, to be without its due weight. The interest taken in the 
meetings of teachers' institutes, throughout the country, has been such 
that the inhabitants of towns and villages have uniformly come for- 
ward, with a liberal hospitality, to receive and entertain the numerous 
professional visitants attracted by such occasions, often without even a 
remunerating charge to defray expenses incurred, sometimes to a 
large amount beyond the usual requisitions of hospitality. To equal- 
ize, in part, at least, the burden thus so willingly borne, would seem a 
natural suggestion of proper consideration ; and the holding of the 
sessions of institutes on the principle of rotation, at dilferent places, 
successively, becomes thus equally a matter of courtesy to earnest 
applicants, and of due regard to the domestic convenience of the 
inhabitants of places in which institutes may be advantageously held. 

TIME FOR SESSIONS AND BUSINESS. 

Season for holding a session. — The season usually found most con- 
venient for holdins" the meetings of an institute, is about a fortnight, 
or, if practicable, three weeks, preceding the customary opening of 
schools, in spring, and in autumn or winter. SufRcient time is thus 
allowed for a session of a fortnight's duration, or as nearly so as the 
distance from which some members have to come, will permit, in 
consistency with their presence at the opening of their schools. An 
advantage, however, is always derived from the circumstance of the 
institute being held as near as convenient to the actual time for the 
opening of schools ; since teachers are thus enabled to carry, at once, 
into practice the principles which have been inculcated at the institute, 
and to commence their labors under the influence of all the salutary 
impressions of such occasions fresh upon their minds. 

Duration and Frequency of Sessions. — The shortest period hitherto 
proposed for an institute session, is, with the exception of a very few 
cases, one week. Sessions held for even this brief space, effect much 
good, although limited to but an annual recurrence. Still, they 
accomplish little, compared to semi-annual sessions of a fortnight, 
each, which give to every zealous teacher to whom they are acces- 
sible, the advantage of a course of ten or twelve lectures, accompanied 
by appropriate practical exercises, on the prominent parts of all or 
mo.st of the subjects in which he is expected to give instruction, in the 
discharge of his daily duties in the schoolroom. Some teachers prefer 
to attend both the spring and the autumn sessions of institutes held 
sufficiently near to them, and thus enjoy the benefit of one entire 
month, of every year, devoted to self-improvement, with reference to 
the business of their profession. 

In sessions of only one week, or a few days, on the other hand, there 
can be little systematic or thorough instruction obtained. A few points 
only, in such cases, can be touched upon : nothing, of whatever im- 
portance, can be dwelt upon : there can be but little exemplification, 
and little of that thorough training which is one of the principal ends 
of an institute. 

Another obvious advantage of two semi-annual sessions over a single 
annual one, is, that tliis arrangement greatly facilitates the adaptation 



GENERAL ALLOTMENT OF TLME. 15 

of instruction at an institute to the natural difference of branches, 
stages, and methods of teaching, in summer and in winter schools. 
Adaptation, however, becomes impracticable when an institute session 
is very brief; and the class of teachers, and the stage of education, 
which are then likely to be comparatively slighted, in hurrying over 
the ground, are precisely those which stand most in need of close 
attention, — viz., the elementary. 

The advantage of double sessions, within the year, is very great, in 
relation to that class of teachers whom institutes are peculiarly bound 
to aid, — those of the female sex. Few female teachers, in compari- 
son, can afford themselves the benefit of professional education at 
normal schools. But two or three years' attendance at well conducted 
institutes, will prove no contemptible substitute for such opportunities; 
and, particularly, where the sessions of an autumn as well as a spring- 
institute, are within reach. It is needless to dwell here on the extent 
to which our primary schools may be benefited by securing such aids 
to their progress. The results of the measure, where observed for 
even one year, are universally acknowledged to be, in the highest 
degree, benehcial and encouraging. 

GENERAL ALLOTMENT OF TIME. 

Different jtor lions of the day. — It has, after full experiment, been 
fountl advisable to divide the whole time of a week's or a fortnight's 
session into three daily sessions; — one, of four hours, in the forenoon, 
another, of three, in the afternoon; and a third, of two hours, in the 
evening. The advantages of such an arrangement are, that as much 
business as practicable may be accomplished within the period of the 
session ; and yet both teachers and taught not become exhausted by 
attempting too much, and enduring beyond their strength. The 
regular diminution of the length of the sessions, from the earliest to 
the latest in the day, favors the energy and freshness of mind in both 
parties, and meets, also, the proper consideration of the circumstances 
of a mixed audience, in the evening exercises, w^hich could not be 
expected to sustain the continuous attention prompted by the profes- 
sional zeal of teachers, in their more immediate objects. 

The number of hours in the day which are, according to the 
arrangement mentioned, assigned to instruction and exercises, is 
adapted to the comparatively brief period during which an institute 
remains in session. Application, so close and so extended, could not, 
of course, be recommended for longer periods of session. But the 
teachers who become members of an institute, are usually desirous of 
accomplishing all they can, within the time rendered available to 
them. Their zeal and earnestness, in all cases, carry them through, 
without flagging; and those whose duty it is to give instruction, on 
such occasions, are happy to meet such feelings with a corresponding 
spirit, on their part, and to crowd into the brief period of a session, 
all the instruction which experience and skill in selecting and con- 
densing, enable them to offer. Nor do the nine hours a day, of close 
application, ever seem long to either party. The variety of subjects 
of attention, proper change of employment, the rotation of lectures and 



16 

exercises, and the continual accession of fresh forms and modes of 
instruction, with the perpetual succession of different teachePB in the 
separate branches, — all tend, in a well conducted institute, to keep the 
faculties in wakeful and pleasing action, and to save them from 
exhaustion by undue continuance and pressure of the same subject, 
the same exercise, or the same teacher. 

DAILY SUBDIVISION OF TIME. 

The forenoon, afternoon, and evening sessions, are usually subdi- 
vided as follows : 

Forenoon Session. 
Time from. 8 o'' clock to 8° 20'. — Opening Exercises. 

The first twenty minutes of the morning, are occupied with devo- 
tional exercises, consisting of the singing of a hymn, the reading of a 
portion of scripture, and the offering of prayer. Eight o'clock is 
chosen as the commencing hour, that time may not, on the one hand, 
be lost irom the purposes of the institute, and that it may not, on the 
other, be witheld from the personal uses of the members, individually, 
as regards opportunity of the bodily exercise requisite for sustaining 
the exertions and the sedentary confinement of the day. A portion of 
the time between breakfast and the daily opening of the institute, is 
also required, occasionally, for the meetings of committees, and for 
other objects of a similar character. 

A great mistake is sometimes made, in regard to the reading of the 
scriptures, by making it, more or less, a class exercise for improvement 
in reading, and a subject for criticism. Such a practice is utterly 
incompatible with a devotional use of the sacred volume, in which the 
whole soul of every reader should be intently fixed, in devotion, on 
the spirit of the passage which is read. To prevent the possibility of 
this exercise being performed in the mood of intellectual or profes- 
sional purposes, merely, it is desirable that either the president, or one 
of the resident local clergymen of the place where the institute is held, 
should conduct the exercise, whether the reading is done by his own 
voice singly, by those of the institute simultaneously, or by his lead- 
ing, and theirs repeating. At some institutes, one, at others, another 
of these modes is preferred. 

The opening prayer of the day is usually made by the president, if 
a clergyman, or by one of the local pastors or preachers, or, in ab- 
sence of such persons, by one of the instructors or other members, in- 
vited by the presiding officer. In the last mentioned case, a prefer- 
ence is properly shown for any individual who belongs to the sacred 
profession. 

Qo 20' — 8° 40'.*^ — Occasional Business, Miscellaneous Questions, or extem- 
poraneous Addresses. 
Twenty minutes following the devotional exercises, are then allowed 

*This scheme of arrangement of time and exercises, does not apply to the frst 
day of a session. The order for that day is mentioned by itself, on a subsequent 
page. 



DAILY SUBDIVISION OF TIME. 17 

for the arrano'ement of occasional business, or for answering miscella- 
neous questions, proposed orally or in writing,* by the members of 
classes, to the instructors who have charge, respectively, of the different 
branches of education taught at the meetings of the institute.! Such 
questions usually embody the doubts or ditficulties of individuals, on 
subjects or modes of instruction which may not have been discussed 
in any lecture or exemplified, to a satisfactory extent. The answers 
to these inquiries, when given in the presence of all, become, not un- 
frequently, of great value to many besides those who proposed them. 
The practice of proposing questions in this way, insures to every mem- 
ber of an institute the benefit of having his peculiar difhculties solved, 
which might not be the case in merely hearing a general course of 
lectures, or performing a prescribed routine of exercise. 

In the absence of all such occu [nations as have been mentioned, the 
portion of time now referred to, is improved, by the president, or one 
of the class instructors, in making brief remarks on the following 
and similar topics ; — the order, arrangement, and management of 
schools, with reference, more particularly, to the best modes of exert- 
ing a moral influence on the heart and the habits of pupils, in and out 
of school, at the moment, and for life. 

This portion of time is, at some institutes, filled up by the class 
instructors, in rotation, — or by class members whose experience or 
skill in any part ot school business, is known to be peculiar, — in state- 
ments and suggestions, made extemporaneously, on professional points 
interesting or important in ihe estimation of the individual. On some 
occasions, this early season of the day's occupations, is turned to good 
account by brief oral remarks, from the president, or one of the class 
instructors, on such subjects as the following : the duty of self-cultiva- 
tion and professional study, on the part of teachers ; the peculiar diffi- 
culties of the business and circumstances of the profession ; the rela- 
tion in which the teacher stands to his pupils, to their parents, and to 
the school committee, as well as to the community amid which he 
labors, and the influence which he necessarily exerts, for good or evil, 
on his country. The time immediately following devotions, when 
thus occupied, represents to the teacher a corresponding briefer por- 
tion of time, devoted to moral and religious inculcation, in his own 
accustomed sphere of daily duty in the schoolroom. 



*The latter of these modes is usually preferred by female teachers ; and the 
written questions are deposited on the desk of the president, and by this officer 
handed to the class instructor in the department to which the question pertains. 
A proper box of deposit Ls usually provided for the reception of written questions, 
and placed permanently in a convenient accessible spot, near the door of the hall, 
or in front of the president's desk. 

fTo avoid confusion, and to secure intelligence and despatch,— resuhs impor- 
tant in all public meetings for business, but particularly so in the brief sessions of 
an institute, — it is important to apply the distinctive designation oi class instructors 
to the persons who have charge of institute classes, and that of class members to 
those who are taught in such classes. To call the former " teachers" merely, and 
the latter "members," always creates confusion and need of explanation. Both 
are teachers by profession ; and both are, sometmies, members of the institute. 



18 TEACHERS INSTITUTES. 

8^ 40'— 9° 40'.— Lecture. 

After the exercise just mentioned, follows, in the regulat dally 
routine of the session, a lecture, of one hour, by one of the class in- 
structors. The lecture comprises a concise review of the prominent 
elements of a particular branch of education, but dwells, to greater or 
less extent, according to the judgment of the lecturer, on the peculiar 
difficulties of the subject itself, and on the best modes, in his opinion, 
of teaching the whole science treated of in his lecture, or whatever 
parts of it he deems it advisable to select. The lecturer sometimes 
suspends his statements, and intersperses them with questions, to be 
answered simultaneously by his class, or singly, as he may prefer for 
the purpose of ascertaining, as far as practicable, that his ideas are 
apprehended aright by all whom he addresses. On particular points, 
he may judge iV advantageous to exemplify instruction, by practical 
exercises in which he calls his class to unite, or to recite in turn. 
With a view to the more effectual illustration of methods of teaching, 
he may select, from any conveniently accessible school, a class of 
young pupils, to serve as a model for details of practical training and 
drilling, and add an exercise, with them, to those which he has had 
performed by the members of the institute. An hour so occupied, is 
spent without fatigue, as the variety of exercise secures and sustains 
attention, without exhaustion ; while a continuous lecture of an hour, 
unbroken by any change in the mode of mental action, in both hearer 
and speaker, is less interesting and less impressive, and, towards the 
close of a session, more particularly, becomes wearisome. Brief, 
practical lectures, with copious examples, and exercises, are uni- 
lormly found best adapted to the purposes of an institute, in'which the 
main object of the students is to learn how to teach, to the best advan- 
tage. 

90 40'— 9^ 50'.— Recess. 

A recess of ten minutes now follows the lecture. This interval is 
intended for the important purpose of relaxing the attention, and rest- 
ing the mind. It should also be regarded as expressly devoted to con- 
versation, to exercise and recreation, or, at least, to change of attitude 
and motion, to ventilation of the hall, and whatever else may contri- 
tribute to renovation of body and mind, and the due exhilaration of 
the animal spirits, as the natural means of lively and earnest attention, 
in proper season, and of sustained and vigorous application to mental 
employments. 

Its Importance. — The neglect of the proper use of recess-times, is 
always injurious to the individual, and detiimental to the life and busi- 
ness of an institute, A morbid disinclination to activity and healthful 
exercise, is one of the worst symptoms that a teacher can manifest. 
A dull school is the sure appendage to a dull teacher. No person, in 
any pursuit, needs such a superabundance of animal life and power, 
in the discharge of daily duties, as a teacher, whose duty it necessa- 
lily is, during school hours, always to sustain, sometimes to withstand, 
sometimes to excite, sometimes to subdue, the pressure of several 
scores of juvenile nervous atmospheres, yet to preside over all with a 
most effectual but genial sway. 



DAILY SUBDIVISION OF TIME. 19 

At some institutes, there is a culpable negligence allowed in regard 
to ventilation and exercise, which is extremely injurious to health and 
mind, on the part of both teachers and taught. At others, this matter 
is properly taken under the cognizance of the ^' committee of arrange- 
ments :" and the results, in comfort, and every other advantage, are 
hourly perceptible to all concerned. 

9° 50' — 10° 50'. — Division or Division Exercise. 

When the peculiar arrangement necessary on the first day of the ses- 
sion, is over, and the customary routine of daily business is established, 
the whole body of the class members, is, — unless in those institutes 
which are provided with only one instructor, — separated into two equal 
divisions, which remain permanently the same, according to a number 
assigned to every individual's name. Each division then withdraws 
into a separate class-room; or one remains in the hall, while the other 
withdraws to a separate class-room ; and the hour is occupied by each 
division, under the charge of a different class instructor, in reviewing 
the subject of his preceding lecture to the whole institute, and in un- 
dergoing a close, personal examination and thorough drill on its details, 
to an extent beyond what could be attempted in a general lecture. 

This arrangement secures to the students of an institute the advan- 
tage of due preparation for exercises, and that, also, of proper change 
of employment, by the alternation of listening to a lecture, for one 
hour, and performing exercises for another, in turn, throughout the 
session. It facilitates, also, the immediate application of the princi- 
ples or methods presented in every lecture. When there is but one 
instructor at an institute, and two classes cannot be taught at the same 
time, the hour to which we now refer, may be advantageously filled 
up by such practical exercises, with the whole institute, as circum- 
stances will permit one person to conduct, — in illustration and applica- 
tion of the previous lecture. 

If the superintendence of the whole course of instruciion, at an 
institute session, is devolved on one person, he will find it an advan- 
tage to divide some, if not all of his teaching hours, so as to occupy 
the first half of each with lecturing, and the second with practical 
training. 

On the first day of a session, this hour is, necessarily, otherwise 
occupied, as is mentioned on next page. 

\0° 50'— W.— Recess. 
The lecture or exercises of the preceding hour, are followed by 
another recess, for the same purposes as the first. 

U°— 12°.— Lecture. 

The last hour of the forenoon session, is occupied with another 
general lecture, on a new subject, and, if practicable, from a different 
instructor. 

During the first few days of the session, however, the last ten 
minutes of this hour, are sometimes reserved from the lecture, and 
assigned to practical business connected with the requisite arrange- 



20 teachers' institutes. 

raents for recording, enumerating, classifying, and seating new mem- 
bers, whose arrival happens to be late. It is preferable, however, to 
avoid this curtailing of a lecture, and, during the early days of a 
session, rather to borrow the first ten minutes of the afternoon for such 
purposes. 

First day of a Session. — On this occasion, the arrangements neces- 
sary for opening the institute, cause a difference, in the assignment of 
hours, during the forenoon, from the regular routine of daily practice, — 
with the exception of the devotional exercises and the recesses, 
together with the last lecture hour, which are the same, on that occa- 
sion as on other days. The business of the first forenoon is, otherwise, 
arranged thus : — 

8" 20'— 8= W.— Business. 
The first dilTerence of order, on this day, regards the twenty minutes 
following the devotional exercises of the morning. This portion of 
time is necessarily devoted to the business of entering the names, and 
assigning the numbers of members, for convenient reference in 
Beating and classification ; the appoining of committees of arrange- 
ment ; the reception and assignment of members, with reference to 
their personal accommodation during the session, &c. 

8" 40'— 9° 40'.— Business. 
The hour regularly devoted to the first lecture, on other days, is also, 
on this occasion, occupied, in part, or wholly, as may be necessary, 
>\'ith the practical affairs just mentioned. 

9© 50'— 10° 50'.— Reports, fyc. 
The hour, on other days, belonging to the second lecture, or to 
division exercises, is, on this day, taken up, if need be, with the read- 
ing of the constitution of the institute, of the report of the preceding 
session, or of any other documents or communications respecting the 
condition and prospects, or the duties, of the institute, or its relations 
to other associations established for similar purposes. Within this 
hour, also, fall whatever observations the president sees fit to make to 
the institute, in its professional capacity, concerning the arrangements 
made for instruction, as regards either lectures or exercises; the anti- 
cipated progress of the members ; their duty in relation to punctuality, 
order, and system, in their attendance and application ; and, in a word, 
whatever would constitute the spirit and substance of an opening 
address, at the commencement of a session in any institution devoted 
to purposes of mental culture. The oral and extemporaneous remarks 
made on this occasion, are appropriately more direct and familiar, and 
more strictly professional in their objects, than those embodied in the 
regular opening address of the session, which is delivered in the 
evening, at a place adapted to a larger and more general audience. 
The evening address embraces, in its scope, the relations of parents 
and committees, and the whole community, not less than teachers, to 
the general subject of education, as well as to the operation of teachers' 
institutes. 



DAILY SUBDIVISION OF TIME. 21 

ll""— 12''.— Lecture. 
The hour occupied, on other days, by the third and last lecture of 
the forenoon, is, on the first day of the session, devoted, — if not una- 
voidably consumed by practical business, or unexpected hindrance, — 
to the first regular lecture of the course, by one of the class instruc- 
tors, — giving, usually, a brief outline of the plan which he intends to 
adopt in teaching and training his classes, on his particular subject ; or, 
if he has charge of more than one branch, he selects, for the hour, 
that which he prefers to introduce first. 

Afternoon Session: 
1*^ 30'— 1° 40'.— Business. 

The time customarily chosen for commencing the afternoon session, 
is fixed as early as now indicated, with a view to save the requisite 
amount of time for recesses, and for an hour's exercise before tea, as 
well as for rest and conversation before the evening session. It allows, 
also, half an hour's rest afier dinner ; if, as is customary, in accommo- 
dation to the business and hours of an institute, the inhabitants of the 
place where it is held, appoint the hour of dinner at half-past twelve 
o'clock.* 

The first ten minutes of the afternoon are assigned to matters of 
practical business, as mentioned before, and, when necessary, to hear- 
ing brief reports from committees on whatever affairs may be of 
immediate urgency. After the first few days of a session, this portion 
of time is used for answering questions, as in the time follow ing devo- 
tions, in the morning; or it is filled up with useful remarks from any 
instructor or class member, at the invitation of the president. 

1© 40' — 2"^ 40'. — Division Exercises, or Lecture. 
The first teacliing hour of every afternoon session, is occupied with 
division exercises on the last, or any other lecture, of the forenoon. 
The sole exception to this order, is that, if there is not more than one 
instructor provided for the session, the first teaching hour of the after- 
noon of the first day, is either used for a second lecture or for practical 
drilling of the whole institute, on the topics of the lecture given at 
the close of the forenoon. When there is more than one class instruc- 
tor provided, the first teaching hour of the afternoon, is occupied with 
a lecture by a different instructor from the one who ofRciated at the 
close of the forenoon; and division exercises and general lectures 
then alternate, till the close of the afternoon's instructions. When, on 
the first day of a session, unavoidable hindrances have caused a delay 
of all instruction till the afternoon, the first and the second hours of 
the afternoon may be both taken up with lectures, and the third with 
division exercises. 



*Much attention to detail becomes necessary in arranging the business and 
hours of an institute ; and the omission or neglect of an apparently small item, 
sometimes occasions great confusion and loss of lime. This consideration will, 
it is hoped, excuse the frequent mention, in these pages, of particulars seemingly 
miiiute- 

2 



22 

2° 40'— 2« 50'.— Recess, 

For the same purposes as in the forenoon. At some institutes, an erro- 
neous zeal for improving time, leads some, if not all the members, to 
fill up the recesses ^vith music. This is quite a mistake. Music is 
too noble an art to be thrown into the byplaces and odd corners of 
time, in this way. It merits the best eflbrts of all who practise it ; 
and to degrade it, as is sometimes done, by reducing it to a m3re 
accompaniment to clapping the hands and stamping with the feet, 
during the performance of bodily exercise, is an abuse against which 
every lover of music should firmly protest. 

To one song, regularly and properly sung, at the beginning of a 
recess, during the prevalence of order and stillness, there can be no 
objeciion. But, on the other hand, delightful as music is, to all human 
beings, it should not be suffered to displace the immediate demands 
of our nature for air and exercise, as a relief from sedentary applica- 
tion. 

2° 50' — 3° 50'. — General Lecture or Division Exercise, 
as before explained. 

30 50'— 4°.— Recess. 

4° — 4*^ 55'. — General Lecture or Division Exercise. 

40 55/ — 50 _ — Announcement 

of subjects of lecture, and discussion, for the evening, — followed by 

the singing of the closing hyinn of the afternoon session. 

The announcement just mentioned, is a convenience, in the way of 
information, to those inhabitants of the place where the institute is 
held, who have members of it boarding in their families ; as they 
receive intelligence through the members, and thus have opportunity, 
themselves, of attending a lecture or discussion which they would 
wish to hear, and of giving notice of it to others whom they think 
proper. 

The closing hymn of the afternoon, is not indispensable ; since the 
exercises of the day are not fully closed at an institute, till the end of 
the evening session. Still, it is desirable that it should be retained, 
as the model of the closing hymn of the day at school. Teachers 
may do much to cherish hallowed associations in their pupils, by the 
daily observance of this exercise ; and they may do much to cultivate 
a general taste for music in society, by merely allowing their pupils 
the pleasure of joining, either under the guidance of the teacher or of 
one of their own number, in an appropriate school song, before dismis- 
sion. The sea-faring man, alone, in the watches of the night, on the 
bosom of the vast ocean, and the solitary missionary, in the far regions 
of the parched East, as they look up, amid the silence, to the monitory 
stars, thrill at the remembrance of those strains of childhoodj and 
weep tears — not of pain. 



DAILY SUBDIVISION OF TIME. 23 

Evening Session: 
70—70 10'.— Fi/mn* and Prayer. 

The hour for the first evenmg exercise, is assigned thus late, to 
allow due time for exercise and recreation, betwee^i the close of the 
afternoon session, and the commencement of that of the evening. It 
is exceedingly important to the health, animation, and mental eneigy 
of both the teachers and the taught, in the classes of an institute, that 
every proper opportunity be embraced for sustaining and renovating 
the vigor of body and mind, in their natural and appointed union. 
The intellectual excitement and activity, kept up by the exercises at 
these meetings, together with the unavoidable sedentary confinement 
aileuding them, demand all practicable aids to the healthy tone of the 
whole system. 

Another reason for not hurrying on the evening exercises, is the 
great advantage, as already mentioned, of allowing time for cultiva- 
ting, at institute meetings, the spirit of social and friendly feeling 
amono- teachers, as tending to lead them to cheerful and effective co- 
operation in united efforts for the advancement of education, as well 
as their own mutual and professional benefit. A part of the evening 
intermission should be attentively devoted to the cultivation of acquaint- 
ance and intimacy between the members of every institute, and 
especially those who expect to be employed in the same town or 
neighborhood, with a view to the objects formerly mentioned. 

70 10'— 8° 10'.— Lecture. 

The first hour of the evening of the first day of a session, is most 
advantageously occupied, — after introductory devotional exercises, — 
by a general lecture from the president, from any prominent friend of 
education, in any profession, or from one of the class instructors, on 
the general subject of education, with reference to parents, and all 
others who are interested in its diffusion and advancement, as well as 
teachers themselves ; so as to aid in deepening and extending the 
interest taken in schools and institutes, throughout the community in 
which they are situated, and on whose vital prosperity they exeit so 
powerful an influence. 

It being customary to have lectures written to such extent as to fill 
up an hour in delivery, the evening lecture, at institute meetings is, by 
courtesy, allowed to extend as far beyond the nominal hour assigned 
to it as to be equal to the time occupied in the previous devotional 
exercises. 

8° 10'— 8° 15'.— 3Iusic. 
It is customary, also, to have a school song, or other piece of music, 
follow the lecture. The music, in this case, is sometimes vocal, some- 

tal, sometimes both ; — somet' 
by a local choir. 

The first hour of the first evening having been occupied as men- 

*Sometiines executed bjr a local choir, — sometimes by a temporary choir of 
members of the institute. 



9A 

tioned, the lecture hour of all subsequent evenmgs, is most usefully 
occupied by the class instructors^ each, in turn^ giving a popul^- and 
interesting lecture, on such branches of his particular department of 
teaching, as seem to him best adapted to the general purpose of crea- 
ting a strong interest in his subject, not only in the minds of teachers, 
but of parents, and all whom it is desirable to engage in active exer- 
tions for the good of schools, the diifusion of the benefits of education, 
and the upholding of these invaluable aids to the instructors of our 
common schools, — teachers' institutes. 

On such occasions, a class instructor sometimes prefers to embrace, 
in his address, topics not immediately connected with his particular 
department of teaching at the institute, but such as are important to 
teachers and parents, on the broader grounds of general information 
and salutary impression. 

The lecture of each class instructor, however, tells with more 
directly useful effect, when he stands, for the time, as the representa- 
tive of his immediate department, since he is thus enabled, in the 
general scope of a popular lecture, to throw off the professional 
shackles of his favorite themes, and to expa,tiate in the region of the 
pleasures as well as the uses of knowledge. Such a lecture necessa- 
rily tends to enlarge and relieve the mind of the professional teacher ; 
it aids him in giving attractive interest to his own daily lessons in 
school ; and it tends to indicate to parents the recent advances in some 
departments of knowledge, and the heavier load of duty thus laid on 
the teacher, as well as the greater value given to the blessing of a 
good education. 

S° 15' — 9*^ 15'. — Conversational Statemetiis and Discussions. 

The evening exercises it is important to have closed thus early, botli 
■with a view to avoid the evils of exhaustion, by which the members 
of the institute would become unfitted for the duties of the session, 
and to allow persons from a distance to reach their homes in season. 
The attractive character of the evening exercises usually brings many 
individuals to attend them, from considerable distances, without, as 
well as with, advantages for conveyance. 

The second hour of the evening session, is best occupied by the 
class members themselves, discussing subjects interesting to teachers, 
and stating their own experience and observation, individually, with 
regard to methods of teaching and governing. If such statements and 
discussion lead to debate, it infuses a desirable life into the exercise. 
But a formal '• debate" is usually little better tlian a tedious waste of 
time. 

On the first evening of the session, it is well for the class instruc- 
tors to set the example of the conversational exercise just mentioned ; 
so as to facilitate the endeavors of the class members to render this 
hour of the evening session a useful and productive one. On other 
occasions, the class instructors may aid by leading the conversation, 
or by suggesting topics. 

During this hour, the president invites parents and committees to 
participate freely in the conversation and discussion, — a highly impor- 
tant end of these evening sessions. The evening exercises close with 
a brief hymn. 



ORGANIZATION. 25 

ORGANIZATION OF TEACHERS' INSTITUTES. 

Having, in our preceding paragraphs, sketched an outline of the 
character and design of teachers' institutes, let us now enter into the 
requisite details of their organization and management. 

County Institutes. 

The most useful of those institutes of which the writer of these 
observations has personal knowledge, are county institutes, — whose 
operations and influence are, as their name imports, co-extensive, in. 
each instance, with the territory of a county, and limited to it; although 
this extent or restriction is not indispensable. It is by no means desi- 
rable, however, that an institute should be limited to the sphere of one 
or a few towns, or any very limited portion of a county. 

In the Vermont Chronicle, of August 8th, 1848, a writer discussing 
the subject of institutes, in a letter to Rev. Darius Forbes, makes the 
following just observations regarding the extent of territory which 
ought to be embraced in the operations of an institute : 

"Yon speak of three institutes as needed by Windsor County. 
Would not all the advantages be conferred, in a far greater degree, by 
one? The teaching could, of course, be better and more abundant, 
if the compensation were devoted to two weeks instead of six. One 
general institute, of the highest character, w^ould excite more attention 
and interest, and be more numerously attended, I think, than three 
limited ones. 

" I am aw^are that it is not quite so convenient for the teachers to 
assemble at one point. But in what town in Vermont is there not one 
farmer, who will, with his large waggon, carry all who wish to go to 
the institute; and another who will return them gratuitously, if need 
be T Students are more easily interested, and intensely engaged in 
their studies, when at a distance from home. The esprit du corps and 
enthusiasm of a large class, can be more fully aroused, than of a 
small one. Let it be recollected that this is not an ordinary school for 
study, but a class of mature minds, capable of any exertion, assem- 
bled for a limited period, for the purpose of being wrought upon by 
the mind of the instructor. Nowhere is the power of sympathy more 
fully exemplified. By reciprocal influence a fire is enkindled, which 
burns the brighter with each additional reflection." 

Town Associations. 
To render county institutes vitally effective, however, for their pur- 
poses, they ought always to be aided by town associations, consisting 
of the teachers of the town, the committee-men and all friends of 
general education, especially parents and clergymen. These associa- 
tions acting, as their name implies, thus carry into actual existence 
and living'effect the benefits to be derived by towns and dishicts. and 
their teacliers and pupils, from the suggestions made at the meerings 
and in the lectures of the county institutes. The duty of town asso- 
ciations, is, to cooperate with the institutes, in every desirable way, 
and report, by committees, at every semi-annual session of these 
institutes. 

2* 



26 

State Institutes, 
To enable the county institutes to accomplish the great Avork of 
aiding in giving unity and harmony and effective character 4o ihe 
measures ^opted for the advancement of education in the particular 
state to which; as county associations^ they belong; these institutes 
should, annviall_y 7 during Tiianksgiving week, or at any such appro- 
priate and convenient time, unite, as a state msiitute, in one general 
session, of one or more days, to communicate with each other, to make 
known the local wants of education, and the feelings of the people, to 
receive the suggestions of the state superintendent, or other state 
officer, and to render him the aid of their communications. A slate 
thus united, compacted and concentrated, yet expanded and diffusive 
in its operations, would be ihe Attica of America. Let New Hamp- 
shire,* " the mountain home of freedom,"^ and of true-hearted men 
and devoted mothers, be, if possible, the first state in our great Union 
to exhibit this model of intellectual, social, and moral action. A state 
so centered on itself, might, in the evil day. stand, if necessary, against 
the world ; and, in the present happier hours of peace and prosperity, 
and purer regard to liberty, to conscience, to the value of human 
intellect, health, and happiness, such a state would enjoy the noble 
distinction of leading the van of the great host of true progress, now 
going forth conquering and to conquer, not by the sword, but the spirit 
of peace, and love, and sanctity. Thus would be realized the best 
wishes of every man who desired to see his owni fireside a yet happier 
spot ; to see his native state more harmoniously and closely united in 
every great principle of action, and more ample in its best resource, — 
the number of its good and noble men ; or to see his whole country 
justly recognized as the wide abode of genuine freedom., of true prin- 
ciple, of intelligence^ worth, and happmess. 

Officers, 
The business of a teachers' institute, of a local and permanent char- 
acter, — as it is to be hoped all institutes will soon be, — requires usually 
a board ef officers, consisting of a president, several vice-presidents, 
a corresponding, and a recording secretary, a treasurer, and as many 
directors or managers, as there are towns in the county ; sj that each 
town may be represented by at least one of its residents. Two local 
directors would, however, be preferable for purposes of consultation, 
and the convenience of occasional antl indispensable relief from active 
duty, as in cases of sickness or other unavoidable absence. 

The Presiilcni 
Of a teachers'^ institute, performs all the usual duties of such an of- 
fice in other associations, and, during the sessions of the institute, ex- 
ercises all the customary control and direction devolved, elsewhere, 
on the president of a college, or the principal of an academy, — in ar- 

*The arrang-ement of that state into county institutes, seems likely to be, ere 
long, completed, — a circumstance which gi-eatly facilitates its rapid progress in 
the career of improvement, as regards a general and uniform system of measure* 
for Ihe advancement of education. 



PRESIDENT. 



27 



ranging the business of the various departments of instructiou, assign- 
ing hours for given subjects, maintaining the requisite order for the 
prompt and etFectual performance of the duties both of the class in- 
structors and the class members. The president, when desirous of 
obtaining a substitute in the chair, appoints, for the purpose, a vice- 
president, (if one is present,) or any other ofiicer of the institute, or one 
of the class instructors. He invites, likewise, (if so disposed,) the 
clergymen of the place where the institute is held, to conduct, in turn, 
the opening devotions of every morning. 

Ejection of President. — There is an obvious propriety, in the election 
of a president for a teachers' institute, that the choice should fall on 
the county superintendent of schools, if there is such an office recog- 
nized in the county in which the institute exists. If there is no such 
office in the county, any permanent resident of the county, distinguish- 
ed by his interest in the subject of education, and the extent of his 
social and moral influence, possesses the requisite qualifications for 
the office of president of a teachers' institute. It is, however, an 
additional recommendation of an individual, with reference to his 
being appointed to it, that he has had actual opportunities of acquiring 
a good knowledge of the general condition of the schools around him. 
It is a farther advantage if he has had experience in teaching, although 
it is not so desirable that he should be a professional instructor. His 
office is to stand between teachers and the surrounding community, 
for the benefit of education. His views must be wider than those of a 
merely practical man in the business of instruction. It devolves on 
him to take a broad survey of the whole subject of education, to 
connect it with the progress of general intelligeiice, virtue, and happi- 
ness, and to aid in lifting up the mind of the teacher above the narrow- 
ing influence of daily routine and confined operation, so as to make 
education an ample development of the whole mind and character of 
his pupils,*' 

Vice-Presidents, Sfc. 

The vice-presidents and other officers have the same duties devolved 
on them in teachers' institutes as in most other associations. The 
president, vice-president, directors, secretaries, and treasurer, immedi- 
ately after their election, issue as a board of management, the consti- 
tution of the institute, prepared and adopted at its organization.! — A 
convenient time for the meetings of the board of officers, is usually 
found to be the day or evening preceding, and the day or evening fol- 
lowing a session of the institute. 

*The county superintendent of schools,— wherever there is such an officer, — is 

obviously the proper person for president of an institute, if his engag-ements, other- 
wise, are not too numerous. The othce of president, however, should, as far as 
practicable, be held permanently by the same individual. 

tThe regular order of procedure for the formation of a county institute, may 
vary in diflerent states. Where a state superintendent or commissioner holds 
office, the friends of education, meeting in any central part of a county, may 
apprized him of their wishes, and invite him to attend and direct, so as to secure 
etiiciency and despatch in the requisite business on such occasions, and a perma- 
nent ettective co-operation with the state system of education. 



28 

Corresponding Secretary. 
This officer is the organ of the institute, in conducting its communi- 
cations with other institutes and similar associations. He hand? copies 
of these to the recording secretary, and receives from the president 
such as are addressed to that officer, but require answers from himself. 
These communications and answers he transmits, likewise, in copies, 
to the recording secretary. 

Recording Secretary. 

The recording secretary attends to the customary duties of his office, 
in keeping the record of the association, calling meetings, at the 
request of the board of management or of the president. He needs 
one, and sometimes two assistants, at a session, to attend to copying 
lists, and other documents, while he keeps a full record, for the insti- 
tute and for the press, of the proceedings at every session, together 
with a synopsis of the lectures and addresses. 

The last mentioned duty he may devolve on any person skilled in 
such business ; and to whom an adequate compensation should be 
allowed by the institute. The reports of the business and lectures of 
an institute, if published in local newspapers, would have, to a great 
extent, the effect of normal instruction, on teachers, and would form 
interesting topics of information to the whole community. 

Duty of Directors to organize Town Associations. — It would greatly 
promote the purposes of education, if each of the directors would, on 
his appointment, at once assume the active duty of aiding the forma- 
tion of a town association, in his own town. He is the natural and 
proper organ of communication between the institute and the associa- 
tion, and, as president of the latter, can give unity and life, and 
efficiency to both. 

Committees. 
The temporary offices of a teachers' institute, at its sessions for 
instruction, are usually the following : 

A Committee of Reception, 
consisting of two members, appointed from the teachers of the place, — 
one to attend to the reception and introduction of the female teachers, 
and another to discharge the same duties to those of his own sex; it 
being customary, at institute sessions, to appropriate one side of the 
hall to female teachers, distinctively ; as this arrangement is found 
most agreeable to them. 

The duty of the '• committee of reception," at the opening of a session, 
is to take convenient seats, near the doors of entrance, and, as the 
class members arrive, to conduct them to their seats, as numbered, and 
to invite each one to place his or her name on a list, properly prepared 
and numbered 1, 2, 3, &c., onward to 100 or 200, as the expectation of 
attendance may be, so that each member may have a number oppo- 
site to his or her name, for convenience in classification and arrange- 
ment. This list, which is designed to be copied daily, or twice a day, 
and handed to the recording secretary for transcription, should contain 
four columns, — one for the numbers, one for the full name of each 



COMMITTEE OF ARRANGEMENTS. 29 

person, one for his or her habitual place of residence, and one, for 
cases in which it is practicable for the teacher to give the town and 
district in which he or she expects to teach, after the close of the 
session of the institute. The committee should be careful to hand 
each member his or her number, at the time of recording, as it pre- 
vents forgetfulness, mistakes, and consequent confusion, in classifying 
and in recitation. It is of great consequence to the orderly progress 
of business, at an institute, that every member have a permanent seat 
appropiiated to him or her, exclusively, during the session. Every 
seat should be numbered for the occasion. 

On the committee of reception devolves, also, the duty of making 
all the members of the institute ' personally acquainted with each 
other, — an indispensable part of the benefits of associating at institutes. 
This duty is conveniently attended to at recess-times. 

If the members arrive in too large immbers, at first, to admit of 
entering their names, in the manner already mentioned, the duty of 
the committee of reception is then, at the first opportunity proper for 
such a purpose, — usually on the close of the opening devotional exer- 
cise, — to pass, in silence, from seat to seat his numbered list, and have 
all the members present enter their names, &c., as mentioned, and, at 
the same time, give every one the number opposite to his or her name, 
on a separate slip of paper, so as to prevent its being forgot. All the 
recess-times from instruction, or general exercises, during the first few 
days of a session, are, in addition to other times, used as proper oppor- 
tunities for this business. Members who happen to arrive later than 
the regular opening of the session, should be met by the committee, 
at the door, and conducted to the proper seat, according to the number 
of the individual's name on the list. 

Another duty of the committee of reception is, at every recess- 
time, or before and after teaching hours, — as well as at times expressly 
asssigned, according to the programme of time and occupation, — to 
introduce the members to the local " committee of arrangements,'' 
(whose office is to be immediately described,) the members reminding 
him, if necessary, of their names, and he receiving their numbers, as 
a check, in such instance, of intimation to himself how many remain 
to be attended to, in this way. 

At the close of every recess-time, the list containing every fresh 
addition to the number of members, should be handed to the record- 
ing secretary to be transcribed by his assistant, and a copy furnished 
to each class instructor. The class instructors hand these lists again 
to the assistant secretary, every morning and afternoon, for the purpose 
of receiving whatever additional names may have been entered on the 
list. The instructors need full and perfect lists, to enable them to call 
upon individuals, by number and name, for answers to questions, when 
put individually. 

Committee of Arrangements. 
Their duty of receiving and accommodating members. — A second class 
of temporary officers of a teachers' institute, is the "committee of ar- 
rangements," consisting of four persons, — two to attend to female, and 
two to male teachers, — and composed, in each instance, of a male 



30 

teacher of the place where the institute assembles, and of a resident 
inhabitant, from among those who are disposed to render to th^ cause 
of education the service of furnishing members who come from a dis- 
tance, the requisite accommodation of lodging rooms and board. The 
committee of arrangements, when individuals are introduced to them 
by the committee of reception, accompany them or direct them to the 
hoi«es of the families with whom they are to be accommodated, and 
make the requisite arrangement for the conveyance of any articles 
which may render such arrangements necessary.* 

It is usually found convenient for the committee of arrangements to 
go about, as early as practicable, and make a list of all the inhabitants 
who are disposed to entertain teachers at their houses, and to ascertain, 
and note on the list, what number each family proposes to accommo- 
date. By checking this list, as fast as they dispose of mdividuals in- 
troduced to them, they are enabled to avoid loss of time and incon- 
venience to all parties. 

Inviting and waiting on Visitors. — Another duty of the committee of 
arrangements, is, to invite parents, and the inhabitants of the neigh- 
borhood, generally, to come to the meetings of the institute, as visi- 
tors. Too much attention cannot be paid to this vital condition of the 
prosperity of teachers' institutes, as well as the general interests of 
education. The teacher, in his daily work at school, can do little, 
without the cooperation of parents and the community in which he 
teaches. With such aid, he can effect all that human agency can ; 
and the sessions of an institute afford to parents and others the best op- 
portunities of acquiring a knowledge of the teacher's duties and labors. 

Two members of the committee of arrangements, (one for each sex,) 
should seat themselves always near to the door of entrance, to conduct 
occasional visitors to proper places assigned to visitors, that such per- 
sons may not be embarrassed by being left ignorant where to sit, and 
thereby cause confusion by mingling, perhaps, with classes about to 
recite. 

Obligations of Visitors. — It is important, however, that all visitors 
should understand, by a hint from the committee of arrangements, that 
the institute is a school, and should not be disturbed in the midst of 
lessons. Visitors can always leave the lecture-room at the end of every 
hour, without causing disturbance. So, also, they can enter at the 
commencement of the forenoon, afternoon, or evening session, or even 
at any of the recess-times. It is not desirable, however, to have chil- 
dren present. They become restless, noisy, and troublesome, amidst 
lectures and exercises adapted to adults. The writer has seen some 
sessions of institutes rendered, in this way, scenes of utter confusion. 
A class of juvenile pupils under the care and tuition of a class instruc- 



*The writer hopes he will not be accused of the spirit of littleness in mentioning 
these items. But when such minutiae have been neg-lccted, the uncomfortable 
spectacle has been seen, of a delicate female, without umbrella, in a drencliing 
rain, lugging a heavy bandbux to her temporary home, half a mile distant, while 
an empty waggon was being kept dry in a near shed, and an idle horse stamping, 
lor want of other employment, in tlie stable. 



COMMITTEE OF ARRANGEMENTS. 81 

tor, with a view to illustrate modes of teaching, w^ould not be liable 
to this objection; as, in such cases, they are interested and are also un- 
der proper control and direction. Such classes are sometimes very- 
desirable, as models in the art of teaching. 

The 'procuring of a Hall, ^'c. — On the committee of arrangements 
devolve all the requisite preparation, as to secmring a proper hall for 
lectures, a meeting-house for public lectures in the evening, rooms for 
division exercises and recitations,*^ the lighting and ventilating of these, 
so that there may be no obstruction to the leclures and exercises, from 
want of due light and good air, — an atmosphere free from undue 
warmth and from cold, — fresh and pure, so as to keep up the vigor 
and animation of both teachers and taught. Experience has distinctly 
and repeatedly shown, that due attention to these points, enables a 
class of nearly tvvo hundred members, attending to intellectual sub- 
jects for nearly nine hours a day, and for nearly a fortnight, in succes- 
sion, to leave off in perfect health and increased animation. Varied 
exercise, frequent intermissions, and pure air, make such a session of 
an institute seem more like a long delightful holiday, than a season of 
hard work. Such is the frequent testimony both of the instructors and 
the members of classes. 

Excursions. — The committee of arrangements have charge, like- 
wise, of a customary act of attention, as regards the occupation of the 
class members generally, on Wednesday and Saturday afternoons. 
These half da3-s it is desirable to have assigned to botanical and geologi- 
cal excursions, — with the aid of those of the instructors who take an 
interest in such branches, or, at all events, as seasons for entire remis- 
sion of study, in the form of in-door lessons, and for free enjoyment of 
the beauty and freshness of nature. A walk of this description, not so 
distant as to fatigue, to undue extent, is also a pleasant opportunity of 
social comminii cation, — a thing exceedingly desirable among teach- 
ers, as an opportunity of relaxation from the continuous pressure of a 
grave employment abounding in cares and anxieties. On such occa- 
sions, the committee of reception have a peculiar opportunity of dis- 
charging one of their special duties, as mentioned before. The com- 
mittee of arrangements have it in charge to conduct the members of 
the institute, in a body, to whatever places or objects, in the vicinity, 
are most attractive and inviting, for the contemplation and enjoyment 
of the works of nature or of art. The latter, in manufacturing places, 
are often of peculiar interest. 

Publication of a List of Members. — Another duty devolving on the 



*A miaor detail of duty devolving on the committee of arrangements, is, ia 
those cases in which an institute is accommodated with the rooms of an academy 
for its meetings, to have all the books and other property of the pupils locked up 
in their desks or removed from them to a convenient place of deposit in one of the 
rooms, so that nothing may be inadvertently displaced or mislaid, and that the 
members of the institute may have free use of at least the surface of the desks 
for writing, when necessary. 

The providing of all requisites for teaching and lecturing, such as a black-board, 
chalk, a pointing rod, and a wiping brush for the board, devolves, likewise, on the 
committee of arrangements. 



32 

committee of aiTangcraent, is, to have, as early as practicable in the 
session, a full list ot the olhcers, instructors, and students of the insti- 
tute prepared, and inserted, immediately, in the most conveniefit local 
newspaper, and to have the proper arrangement made for providing 
each member with one or more copies. The slight expense attending 
this matter, is defrayed by each member handing to the committee of 
arrangement the few cents required, accordmg to the number of copies 
of the paper wddch he wishes to take. 

The list now referred to becomes a document of great value, to the 
students whose names are thus placed before the county or town, 
whether as candidates for places in the employment of teaching, or as 
persons already engaged in the business. It becomes, also, a conven- 
ient document for reference, to school committees desirous of obtain- 
ing teachers ; the list having been carefully preserved so as to specify 
both the habitual residence of every member, and the place where he 
or she teaches^ or has taught,* in those cases in which the students of 
the institute are already employed in teaching, or engaged to be so 
employed. The names of candidates are, of course, recognized by 
the blank for the place of employment. 

Monitors. 

Monitors of Pimctuality. — Another temporary appointment, connect- 
ed with the business of institute meetings, is that of " monitors of 
punctuality," — whose duty it is to see that every class member is in his 
or her place five minutes before the time of commeiicing the forenoon, 
afternoon, and evening exercises of each day. The number of moni- 
tors is two, — a lady and a genUeman, who record, at the commence- 
ment of each forenoon, afternoon, and evening session, the numbers 
and names of the missing. — each member always occupying, when 
present, the same place, and no one else occupying it, when an indi- 
vidual is absent, — and, just before the close of each of the daily ses- 
sions, note the absent. The duty ol the monitors of punctuality, is, 
to read aloud, at the request of the president or chairman, — immedi- 
ately after morning devotions, — a report of attendance, for the prece- 
ding day. In this report is mentioned the number, but not the name, 
of every individual late or absent, as such, together with the whole 
amount of instances of lateness and absence, daily. This arrange- 
ment may, at first sight, to some minds, seem unnecessarily strict. 
The writer can only say, — and he says it with much gratification, as a 
tribute to the character of New England teachers, — that it is the mildest 
of many measures adopted, without suggestion, and by unanimous 
vote, at many institute sessions, and carried into full effect, with a 
genuine but noble puritanic rigor. f 

An institute fails, so far, of its purposes, if it is not, in perfect punc- 
tuality, as in all other respects, a model school, — the ideal of the teach- 
er, in his daily routine of duty and of progress. The only rule of 

*The use of an asterisk may indicate, on the list, the names of persons who 
have tauglit at a particular place, but do not expect to resume there. 

tThe patriot may justly exclaim, while contemplating such facts, "The country 
is safe, wliile its youth are under the care of such teachers." 



MONITORS OF TIME. 33 

safety, of order, of tranquillily, and of efRcient mental action, is to ar- 
rive at the scene of active duty a few minates before the time of com- 
mencing work, so as to have business commence at the hour, not after 
it. The teacher who unnecessarily enters the school-room five min- 
utes late, is, consciously, in the degrading predicament of an operative 
at a mill, who in similar circumstances, is noted and fined for the de- 
falcation, or of a laborer who comes late to his work, yet pockets the 
full payment for an hour's labor, without staying to make up his defi- 
ciency. A teacher's habits are, in this particular, if in no other, the 
rule of his school. 

Monitor of Time, 

His duty as to promptness. — The male monitor of punctuality is also 
" monitor of time." He has charge of the larger, or summoning bell, 
used within doors,* while the presiding officer, or the acting instruct- 
or, has charge of the smaller, or " order bell,"f which is rung when- 
ever occasion requires a signal for attention, or the movement of a 
class. It is the duty of the monitor to ring the signal for commencing 
and for closing all lectures, general exercises, and recesses. The 
monitor of time is expected to be perfectly exact, as to the moment for 
ringing his bell, even if it interrupt a lecturer in the middle of a sen- 
tence, and, after recess, to ring his bell at the entrance door, as well as 
within, to recall the members to their class duties. 

To cut off a lecturer, so abruptly, may, to some observers, seem ar- 
bitrary. But the law of Time. — to which every human being is sub- 
jected by his birth " into this breathing world" of seasons, days, and 
hours, and fleeting moments, — demands prompt obedience. Disorder 
otherwise becomes inevitable. If a lecture overruns its hours, it cuts 
off some important part of other business, and disturbs the regularity 
of the day, A public body without order, becomes an unwieldy mass, 
and, sometimes, an unruly mob. 

It is part, also, of the duties of the monitor of time to be responsible 
for the promptness and regularity of the sexton, or other person, who 
rings the public bell, at the proper times for assembling, at the hours 
of forenoon, afternoon, and evening sessions. The usual rule of insti- 
tute meetings, is, that the public bell should be rung for five minutes, 
commencing at a quarter before the hour assigned, and tolled for the 

*Tlie bell in the cupola of the building in wliich the institute meets, or that ot the 
nearest uaeeting-house or ehureh, is used for the customary signals of opening the 
daily sessions. 

tThe order bell is rung by the president, whenever he wishes to call the atten- 
tion of all the members, to a special point, when some or all are otherwise occu- 
pied ; or when he wishes to dismiss a division from the hall to their class-rooms. 
The small bell is, in the former case, rung onee — ,in the latter, tlu-ee times in 
succession, but at the requisite intervals to correspond to the time implied in 
observing the three oral directions, "Ready !" — " Rise !" — " Go !" A fourth ring 
is sometimes required to remind the division of the importance of silent motion, in 
all cases of going to or coming from exercises. The small bell is useful, also, to 
the lecturer or instructor of the hour, to enable him conveniently to suspend giv- 
en exercises, and attract attention to others, as maybe necessary in circumstan- 
ces when the eyes of his class ai-e not directed to him, but, nectissarily, to the slate 
or paper before them. 

3 



34 

five minutes immediately preceding the hour, A more convenient 
regulation would be, that the tolling .should commence immediately 
after the ringing; as the members of the institute are all supposed to 
be in their places by five minutes before the given hour. 

A rule of great importance to convenience and health, not less than 
punctuality, is that all the members of an institute should either be 
accommodated within ten minutes' easy walk of the lectuie-room; or, 
if otherwise, that individuals boarding at a distance should have the 
convenience of riding to and from the place of meeting. The interest 
taken in institute meetings, by individuals living at a distance from the 
centre of population, sometimes renders the latter arrangement a very 
agreeable as well as healthful one, to the members. The most re- 
spectable sight, in the form of riding, that the writer of these pages 
ever saw, was a long rustic waggon, fitted with temporary seats, and 
regularly conveying to and from the lectures of an institute, — a dozen 
teachers of both sexes, who resided in a town a tew miles distant from 
that in which the meetings were held. The general zeal for educa- 
tion, prevailing among the people of New England, is, in no respect, 
more strikingly or more pleasingly manifested, than in the exertions 
made to sustain them, by all classes of the inhabitants of the places in 
which they are held, — not only by personal attendance, as visitors, and 
by occasional participation in the oral statements and discussions con- 
nected with the evening exercises, but by every form of hospitable at- 
tention to the members of the institute whom they receive, during the 
session, as their guests. 

It is another duty of the monitor of time, to mention, as early as 
practicable, to the committee of arrangements the importance of sug- 
gesting to the families who extend their hospitality to the members of 
the institute, the necessity under which the latter are laid of depend- 
ing on early and punctual meals, that lectures may be attended with 
perfect punctuality, and recreation be enjoyed without encroaching on 
business.* A little oversight in this matter, sometimes occasions 
hurry and confusion, and lateness ; while a single seasonable word 
will always prevent the inconvenience. 

Bells and Timepiece. — Another duty of the monitor of time, is to see 
that the larger and smaller bells, formerly mentioned, are furnished by 
the committee of arrangements, and that, also, there is a timepiece, large 
enough to be easily read in all parts of the lecture-room, placed in a 
convenient situation. One can usually be obtained, without difficulty, 
on loan, from a neighboring family. All the members of an institute 
are thus kept in constant knowledge of the progress of business. An 
institute, as a model school, cannot dispense with this aid to punctual- 
ity and despatch. 



=*fiWilies are universally found willing, on suggestion, to acconuBodate their 
boarders, — particularly, the female members of institutes, — with the requisites 
for a lunch dinner, when unfavorable weather renders it advisable for ladies to 
avoid the exposure of going and returning at noon. To persons boarding at a 
comparative tUstance from the place of meeting, tliis arrangement is, sometimes, 
of great moment to health as well as comfort. 



MONITORS OF NEATNESS. 35 

Monitor? of Neatness. 

Their duties. — Another temporary aid, of indispensable service to the 
business of a teacheis' institute, is that of " monitors of neatness." 
The duties of this office are performed by two members, — one from 
each sex ; — the lady prescribing^ and the gentleman executing-. An 
institute being a model school, in every particular, cannot dispense 
with attention to the humble duties of sweepinjz and dusting, avoiding 
litter, ink-spilling, marking improperly, scribbling, cutting, and all the 
other members of that numerous family of annoying habits which 
sometimes take up their abode in our school-rooms, and may even need 
exorcising from the person and habits of the teacher. A teacher who 
chews, or smokes, or takes snuff, corrupts the habits of his pupils, and 
inures them to certain repulsive acts, about which it is not agreeable 
either to speak or to write. The members of an institute, moreover, 
are responsible for the good and cleanly condition in which they leave 
the hall with the use of which they have been favored. The rule of a 
model school is, evidently, absolute cleanliness, and perfect neatness, 
an utter absence of litter on the desks and the floor, and of accumula- 
tions of dust or mud from the feet. A volunteer local committee for a 
thorough previous scrubbing and sweeping, and, if necessary, white- 
washing or coloring of the lecture-room, would aid very much the 
comfort and respectability of the sessions of teachers' institutes. 

Duties of the male monitor of neatness. — On the gentleman who is 
monitor of neatness, devolves the duty of seeing to the laws of cleanli- 
ness beinsT duly enforced, and noting and reporting to the presiding oi- 
ricer any violation of them; so that a seasonable suggestion may be 
made by him, on the subject. The monitor of neatness is expected to 
see that the committee of arrangements furnish the requisite means of 
cleanliness, in the form of scrapers, foot-mats, and dusting-cloths, and 
to have provided, in the vestibule, or in the cloak-rooms, for each sex, 
several whisks and shoe-brushes, a looking-glass, water, and other re- 
quisite conveniences for washing and drinking. It is his duty, also, 
to hire or engage a proper person to attend to the immediate labor of 
sweeping and dusting, and of fire-making, when necessary. What- 
ever expense is thus incurred, is, of course, defrayed by the institute. 
The members of an institute sometimes, however, prefer, as pupils of 
a mode! school, to assume, in turn, the labors just mentioned; the 
more active exertion of sw^eeping, devolving on the male members, 
and the lighter one of dusting, on the females, — all under the control 
of the monitors. 

Duties of the monitress of neatness. — The lady who is monitress in, 
the department of neatness, is expected to call on the active services 
of as many of the gentlemen as may be requisite to adorn, under her 
direction, the walls and columns of the lecture-room, M^ith wreaths of 
evergreen, or other accessible plants. She calls, also, on the ladies, at 
her discretion, to lend her their assistance in furnishing bouciuets of 
flowers, fcr the desk of the lecturers, and other situations where their 
beauty and fragrance may be enjoyed by all, — not appropriated by in- 
dividuals, or liable to be torn to pieces, dropped, and, ere long, tramp- 
led oUj, — giving offence rather than pleasure to the eye. 



36 

Some readers may deem the preceding arrangement superflnons. 
We plead, again, that the institute is a model school, that it i^to ex- 
emplify, largely, the attractions and the pleasures of education, and 
the pure and delightful enjoyments of innocent and hallowed hearts : 
and that it is a sacred duty of teachers to cherish, in themselves and 
their pupils, a love for the beaut}^ which God has spread over all his 
works, but concentrated, as it were, in these silent yet most eloquent 
testimonials of his love. 

The writer visited, but a few days before penning these pages, a 
remote summer school, by the wayside, on the border of a tract of 
forest land, and distant over a quarter of a mile from any dwelling. 
There he found an able, intelligent, and alTectionate teacher, with her 
little group of happy, neat, and orderly pupils arround her, and the 
walls of the room beautifully festooned and garlanded with evergreen^ 
while, on the teacher's desk, lay the ofFeving of flowers, — those speak- 
ing tributes of the juvenile heart. The place seemed a spot consecra- 
ted to intelligence and taste^ to innocence^ peace ^ and love,* 

Class Instructors. 

Appointment of Class Instructors. — These temporary preceptors of 
teachers' institutes, are selected, at a general meeting of the board of 
officers, held, if practicable, a quarter of a year, or a month, at least^ 
before the semi-annual session of the given institute. They are nom- 
inated, — along with several substitutes, as a necessary proviso, — by 
the president, and approved by vote of the whole board. They are, — 
as earl}' as practicable, — notified of their appointment by the corre- 
sponding secretary, and informed of the time and place at which the 
institute holds its contemplated session. 

Theii' first duty, — as matter of courtesy, on the part of persons so 
invited, — is that of a prompt reply, — accepting or declining the invita- 
tion ; so as to enable the president, or the secretary, to make all requi- 
site arrangements accordingly, in season. 

It is desirable that the corresponding secretary should, after allow- 
ing a delay of a week or two, as may seem requisite, accordiug to 
distance and occupation, on the part of the person invited, write to the 
first substitute ; then, if need be, the second, and, as soon a.s practica- 
ble, communicate to the president the acceptance of each invitation, 
that seasonable arrangements may be made for announcing the pro- 
gramme of the contemplated session. 

Number of class instructors. — The following considerations should 
have full weight, in relation to the number of instructors which it is 
desirable to have engaged in conducting the business of a teachers^ 
institute. 

1. No man is equally well qualified to teach in all departments of 



*Tlie progress Ixjth of teacliens and pupils, in our common schools, as regards 
matters oi propriety, neatness, and taste, h\ all that concerns arrang-ement, withiii 
doors and w^ithoijt, is, within the last few years, one of the most decided and 
cheering evidences that the belter inlluences of education are becoming gene- 
rally prevalent. 



NUMBER OF CLASS INSTRUCTORS. 37 

education. Every man's mental constitution, habits, and preferences, 
lead him to excel in one branch, more than in another. In thai branch 
only, can he teach so well as to be a model to others. Perfection, or 
an approach to it, is the only standard with which an institute should 
be satisfied. It is not ordinary and commonplace teaching, in the way 
of mere routine, that ought to be exemplified on such occasions. The 
instruction given at institutes, should be so superior as to inspiie the 
taught with fresh interest in every subject, and renewed zeal to com- 
municate its piinciples and its benefits to other minds. 

2. One man cannot accomplish much in the way of practical train- 
ing and drilling. His classes may sit, and listen patiently to his 
lecture<5 and statements, and may obtain opportunity for occasional 
brief exercises. But this is not model teaching, — such as an institute 
should exhibit. True teaching works up, promptly and thoioughly, 
all the materials thrown out in the forms of theory and system. But 
this can never be done, to any beneficial extent, with only the action 
of one instructor. The proper course for an institute is, evidently, to 
employ as large a number of teachers as there are prominent branches 
to be taught. Or, if this aid is too expensive, to assign as few 
branches as practicable to one person's charge. The students of an 
institute may thus be subdivided into manageable numbers, for per- 
sonal exercises to be practised by every member, — an arrangement 
which makes a course of instruction at an institute of immense value, 
comparatively, to every individual who attends its session, 

3. A fresh impulse is given to application, by the interest attached 
to the associations connecting every subject with a special instructor. 
The attention of all the classics is thus easily and pleasingly kept up, 
and the amount of etTort put forth on both sides, — on that of the 
teacher not less than the taught, — is vastly increased without exhaus- 
tion or fatigue. A fortnight's session of an institute so conducted, 
becomes more like a long and pleasant recieation time, than a period 
of strenuous exertion or irksome endurance. The continued teachings 
of the same individual become unavoidably more like daily tasks: his 
spirits, and those of his classes, begin, ere long, to flag ; and the mind, 
in both parties, becomes dull and inefficient. The amount of work 
accomplished, under such circumstances, is, necessarily very slight; 
and one great end of an institute session, — the infusing of a fresh 
interest into the daily business of schools, — is, to a great extent, lost. 

4. The employment of an adequate number of teachers at an insti- 
tute, serves, also, to place such opportunities of professional improve- 
ment on their proper footing. Institutes are, in effect, professional 
seminaries of a high order ; and their number of instructors should 
indicate this fact, both to the members of the profession, and to the 
surrounding community. They ought, in this, as in other things, to 
command the respect of all who have any interest at stake in the 
great cause of education. Economy, in such cases, is parsimony, and 
self-inflicted privation, where liberality should be cherished as the true 
policy, and the genuine assurance of profit. Cheapness should be the 
last recommendation of an institute. The compensation to instructors 
should always be such as to command the highest talent in every 

3* 



38 

branch of the teacher's profession. Institutes should in this, as well 
as other thiairs, take their true place, as seminaries of the highest 
order, and entitled to all respect. 

5. A liberal proA^sion for instruction enables an institute to draw, 
with equal propriety and good effect, on all the teachers, or candi- 
dates for the office of teaching, within the limits of a county or other 
extensive region. Large and full classes, if adequately provided with 
instruction, are always more successful than limited ones, A full 
school, if well classified, is always the most prosperous. There is 
life and impulse in numbers; and it is a fact familiar to all who have 
had opportunity of observing, that ihe maxim holds as true in schools 
for teachers as in any others. 

6. It is exceedingly desirable that institute sessions should be held 
as near as possible to the time for opening schools for the season, 
whether winter or spring. Teachers thus entey fresh upon their work, 
with all the aid arising from the new impulse just received at the in- 
Btitute. But if the institutes of a county, or of a given portion of a 
state, are conducted successively, by one person, this advantage must 
be lost, in some instances ; as the time occupied in holding one 
session after another, in different places, must either extend far be3'ond 
the proper period for the opening of schools, or precede it, at such a 
distance of time as to render the benefit small, in comparison ] since 
much must, in that Cttse, have faded from the memory of those who 
were taught, ere it could be reduced to practice, in their schools, 

7. The uniform experience, as regards the number of instructors 
employed at the sessions of teachers' institutes, testifies, in cases in 
which the experiment has been made, that the benefit derived from 
such opportunities is proportioned to the number of persons employed 
to communicate instruction. 

But it would seem unnecessary to enlarge on this topic. The sub- 
ject speaks for itself. The work of a large establishment of any 
description, — ^whgther farm, factory, or school, — is always best attend- 
ed to where there is a sufficient number of persons employed to 
superintend all departments ; and the division of labor does quite as 
much at a teachers' institute as anywhere else.* 

Speaking of the comparative advantage of employing several 
teachers, rather than one, at the sessions of an institute, the writer 
before referred to, says : 

'^ You speak of a teacher as needed. If there are any advantages 
pertaining to an institute, these will be far better attained by several 
teachers than by one. No mu man, though he united the skill of a 



*The ar^iment drawn from economy of expenditurtv in favor of employino; but 
one or very few instructors at an institute, is undoubtedly entitled to due weight. 
But, fortunately, this consideration has seldom been found a decisive one. "No 
difficulty, has, as yet, been experienced in raising, even in comparatively remote 
agricultural districts, the few hundred dollars retjuired to defray all reasonable 
charges attending the holding of an institute. Long mav the spiVit indicated by 
this fact mark the history of education tliroughout the iTuiou, as it now does in 
New England. 



NUMBER OF CLASS INSTRUCTORS. 39 

Parrish with the versatility of a Fowle^ the precision and ability of a 
Stoddard, and the devotion of an Arnold, could so command the atten- 
tion of a class, during seven hours a day for ten days," (the usual 
teaching period,) '* his mhid being distracted by dilferent subjects, and 
his body worn by incessant and severe toil, as would three energetic 
and talented teachers, who should divitle the labors, relieve the monot- 
ony by claiming the attention of their classes alternately, and each 
teaching his portion of the studies with an exclusive devotion, an 
energy ,"and a zeal, which could not otherwise be attained."' 

The number of branches of education usually taught, even in 
district schools, makes it evident that, at an institute, there ought 
always to be several instructors employed to conduct its exercises. 
There ought to be, if practicable, a separate instructor for each of 
the following branches : 1st, arithmetic, and the other branches of 
mathematics; 2d, reading, spelling, and grammar, or whatever re- 
gards the use of our own language ; 3d, geography and history ; 4th, 
penmanship; 5th, music: and it has been Ibund advantageous, on 
account of the extent of time required for drilling exercises, in the 
department of reading, to detach it from the others mentioned under 
the 2d head. Three or four instructors may sometimes, but rarely, be 
found qualified to embrace all these subjects. Two instructors m.ay 
manage, by cutting olf several branches — to the great disadvantage of 
the Institute, and the diminution of its claims to usefulness. But one 
instructor must obviously sacrifice much to necessity. 

Preparation for the duties of lecturing and teaching. — It is a matter of 
great moment to the success and personal comfort of a class instruc- 
tor, that, as soon as may be, after accepting the invitation of the insti- 
tute, he should commence his preparation for the business of lectur- 
ing and teaching. Of such preparation, his first and most important 
step is to be carefully attentive to due selection and condensation, so 
as to embrace all the important features of his subject, in just pro- 
portion. Otherwise, he will come to the work before him, unpre- 
pared to accomplish the arduous but all important task of laying be- 
fore his classes an adequate and instructive view of his subject, such 
as ought to be given, in turn, to their pupils, by the members of the 
institute classes, during the customary session of a winter or a sum- 
mer school. From five to ten lectures, are, at the utmost, all that 
one instructor can give at one institute session, when each lecture 
is followed by an hour's drilling of each division. Within so narrow 
limits it is necessary to condense all the instruction to be given on any 
one subject. An extensive and minute survey of subjects, is, in such 
cases, utterly impracticable ; and the attempt to accomplish it, must 
end in mutual disappointment to instructors and members of classes. 

No subject, however, should be marred by a deficient and imper- 
fect outline, w^hich omits anything important to good teaching in the 
branch presented to the attention of the institute. The class instructor 
must, in his selection of topics, be guided by the actual wants of 
schools, more than the ideal symmetry and completeness of his theo- 
retic view of a subject. Attention, however, is also due to the claims 
of subjects themselves upon the mind ; and the ideal of instruction, at 
institute meetings, is the union of an adequate outline of a subject, 



40 

with the requisite course of exercises to discipline the mind on its most 
important parts. • 

Alter7}ation of lectures and practical exercises. — The proper manage- 
ment of an institute session, gives to the class instructors, a partial 
facility for combining, in their endeavors to teach, the benelits of thor- 
ough practical training with those of systematic study. Every instruc- 
toris required to conform to the general regulation of (1st.) giving a 
lecture of an hour's length, in which he may preserve the unity of his 
subject, and the contiiuiity of thought upon it, and yet, as has been 
mentioned, throw out occa.sional questions for simultaneous or individ- 
ual answers, or introduce a few brief simultaneous exercises, so as to 
sustain a close and earnest attention. He is expected, also, (2d,) to 
follow such a lecture whh a thorough course of practical exercises, per- 
formed simultaneously, by the division, or individually, by the mem- 
bers, as may be requisite, and exemplifying to them how they .should 
instruct their own future pupils. These exercises, whether simultane- 
ous or individual, serve, likewise, the purpose of inculcating or review- 
ing the most important parts of the subject assigned to the instructor, 
and thus enable the members of the class to go to the work of instruct- 
ing their respective schools, with minds fresh from the revision of their 
own attainments, and ready to communicate their knowledge. 

3Iodcl class of young pupils. — It is an additional facility to the busi- 
ness of an instructor at an institute, if he can secure a juvenile class, 
to be trained by him, in presence of the members of the institute, as 
a model class, thus exhibiting all the details of actual and thorough 
teaching, in the branch of which he has charge. 

Necessity of dwelling on elements. — If the writer of the present pamph- 
let may be permitted to drop a suggestion here, to others, which is 
forced upon his own mind, by somewhat extensive experience hi the 
duties of instruction at institute meetings, — it would be this, that, not- 
withstanding the comparative intelligence of our present race of 
teachers, there is nothing which they generally need so much as 
thorough review of the simplest elements of subjects, and thorough 
drilling in the true modes of teaching these elements. Let us come 
frankly up to the question ; and, while we answer it. not without deep 
regret, let us answer it candidly : What is the prevalent deficiency in 
American education, — from the primary school upward 1 It is the 
want of a thorough knowledge of elements. We have, amidst our 
many expert and accomplished teachers of common schools, thousands, 
also, of yoang men and women following the business of teaching, 
who cannot spell with accuracy, who cannot give the elementary 
sounds of our language correctly, who cannot even put it in the power 
of their pupils to \lislinguish between the name and the sound of a 
letter, who pronounce the words of their vernacular tongue, in a very 
slovenly and imperfect style, who do not write a good hand, who 
cannot enter into the peculiar merits of the processes of mental arith- 
metic, who violate the rules of grammar, daily and hourly, in the 
presence of their pupils, who have no adequate knowledge of the very 
rudiments of geography, who have not even read one good history of 
their own country, or of any other. 



SELECTION OF CLASS LNSTRUCTORS. 41 

This testimony the writer feels compelled to give, as a needed hint 
to his fellow-laborers preparing, for the first lime, to give a course of 
lectures and instruction at an institute session. Such instruction should 
be strictly elementary, if it is to be of any real use. The present 
body of teachers in our primary and common schools, are not to be 
blamed for deficient knowledge of elements. They were, mostly, 
themselves trained on the pernicious plan of skipping, crowding, and 
hurrying, which is so characteristic of our national modes of progress. 
Selection of class instructors. — The persons who are most thoroughly 
prepared for the office of instruction at institute meetings, are those 
teachers of academies and private schools, who have themselves 
taught in common schools, although the last-mentioned qualification 
is not indispensable to success ; as the training of the youngest classes 
in academies, may have been a sufficient school for the instructor's 
own mind and habits, in the business of actual teaching. Occasion- 
ally, liowever, the successful teacher of a district school, becomes an 
excellent instructor at an institute, especially when he brings a juve- 
nile class with hira, and exemplifies, to younger and less experienced 
members of his profession, how the daily work of the school-room may 
be skilfully and expertly done. 

On the subject of the selection of instructors for an institute, the 
writer before quoted, remarks : 

"'Is it difficult to obtain teachers'?' There are, in almost every 
county, those ready for the Avork. And among the means best calcu- 
lated to excite an interest in the community in favor of institutes, has 
been found the employment of local teachers of academies and semi- 
naries, as instructors. They have usually had experience in training- 
teachers, are at home, and have many former pupils among the stu- 
dents ; they know the needs and tastes of the locality, and are there- 
fore likely to succeed. Moreover, each of them has a large class of 
warm friends, among those who have expended the most, and are most 
interested in the cause of education, in their vicinity. Their employ- 
ment, therefore, raises up friends for the institutCj allays prejudice, and 
gives a character to the undertaking, more readily than any other 
means. The labors of one" (or more) '• expeiienced lecturers, 
should, however, by no means be dispensed with." 

Objections to the employment of class members as class instructors. — The 
attempt sometimes made, to draw out one of the class members of an 
insfitute to teach the rest, by way of giving him an anticipative knowl- 
edge of what he is to do in his own school, is, almost uniformly, an 
entire iailure, and an utter waste of time. It serves only to embarrass 
and perplex, and, in nearly all instances under the writer's observa- 
tion, it comes speedily to a standstill. The young candidate for the 
teacher's office, is abashed, confused, and perplexed, in the presence 
of equals and superiors in years, knowledge, and skill ; and his mind 
cannot do its accustomed work : he cannot do, at an institute, what he 
could easily do, at school, with a class of children before him. • Nor is 
it fair to the young candidate to embarrass him by the attempt. His 
instruction, at the^same time, passes for little value with those who 
feel justly that they are equal and superior in knowledge, to the person 



42 

who is thus put into the position of seeming to instruct them. When 
a class of children can be had, as the material on which to ^«ork, the 
case is somewhat bettered. But even then, a quick-minded pupil may 
be sometimes seen enjoying the embarrassment or occasional errors o 
the unpractised instructor. But on this point it is unnecessary to en- 
large ; as there are few instances in which such attempts as have been 
spoken of, when actually made, are not speedily abandoned. 

Apprenticeship to teaching. — It is here, perhaps, a proper place lo 
make the suggestion that no measure would more directly conduce to 
the improvement of common-school education, than an arrangement 
generally adopted, by which young persons desirous of embarking in 
the business of teaching, should be required, on finishing their own 
course of attendance at school, for instruction, to attend one term, if no 
more, with an experienced teacher, for the purpose of learning how 
to teach. Our young physicians enjoy a corresponding advantage : 
so do our young lawyers : so did formerly our young theologians. 
Why should not also our teachers have their proper opportunity of 
acquiring professional insight and professional skill. All our semina- 
ries for teachers can never properly supersede such an apprenticeship 
to the actual daily duties and routine of the school-room : and young 
candidates for the teacher's office, would, if prepared by this previous 
discipline, come to the session of an institute with a more definite and 
earnest purpose in their minds, regarding their occupation and all 
opportunities of preparing for it. At the sessions of an institute, the 
characteristic attention of the members of classes, generally, is pro- 
found and earnest ; and their activity in exercises and drilling lessons, 
is prompt and effective. Some young persons, however, unaware of 
the serious difficulties and solemn responsibilities of the office of in- 
struction, come to the meetings of an institute with little energy of 
resolution for improvement, slight impressions of the value of such an 
opportunity, little power of fixing their attention on the subjects of the 
lectures, and go away, — as might well be expected, — not very sure 
whether they derived much benefit from attending. 

Preparation and plan of lectures. — The duty of an instructor at an 
institute, may be thus briefly defined, as regards the matter, plan, and 
arrangement of his lectures. Every lecture should embrace a definite 
portion of his whole subject, and should give a comprehensive state- 
ment of that part, yet a full and safisfactory exposition of it. The lec- 
turer's statement of his views, though drawn from profound investiga- 
tion and thorough knowledge, should yet be concisely and clearly and 
plainly exhibited, in connection with the general relationsof every part 
to the whole snbjcct, and with practical applications of every part, in 
sufficient detail of example and illustration. To this broad view and 
practical exposition, may advantageously be added a brief survey of 
the accordant or conflicting opinions of eminent authorities, — with 
the reasons for adopting given views, and to all should be appended 
the lecturer's own special theory and practice of teaching, in all impor- 
tant branches of the part of the .subject comprehended in his lecture. 

Style of lectures. — The instructor, as a model teacher and lecturer, 
should, of course, use his best endeavors to make his subject as inter- 



MANNER OF LECTURING. 43 

esting and attractive as may be in his power. The more plain and 
simple iiio modes of expression are, the clearer will be his hearers' 
view of his subject. Nothing- can be more out of place than florid 
rhetoric in a lecture designed to aid the practical business of teaching. 
Nor can anything be a more notable failure, on such an occasion, than 
a style so abstract, and a manner so dull or cold, as to fail of kindling 
the mind to earnest attention and strenuous application. The instruc- 
tor must have the power of unconsciously exemplifying that indispen- 
sable trait of a mind " apt to teach," — the habit of throwing himself 
wholly into his subject, and holding, with an inevitable grasp, the 
minds of those who listen to his teaching. Thus only can he exem- 
plify or communicate, true instruction. To be concise, plain, and direct 
in expression, as well as clear in thought, is indispensable to a lecturer 
at an institute. 

Manner of lecturing. — An instructor lecturing to classes at an insti- 
tute, will be successiul in the degree to which he avoids drawing too 
long upon his audience ior an unbroken and continuous attention. 
The mind resembles the body in its vital actions : our respiration is not 
an uninterrupted inspiration or expiration, — it consists of a due alter- 
nation ; the circulation of the blood is not one ever-guslnng stream, — 
it is a series of pulsations and remissions. It is, in some parts of a 
lecture, important, unqiiestionably, to make comparatively long-contin- 
ued draughts on the hearer's power of attention. But the instructor at 
an institute is bound to remember that he is giving, in his very lecture, 
a model of instruction for children, who have not the power of long;- 
sustained mental action, — whose mental acts are swift and brief, by 
nature, and cannot be safely protracted or repeated beyond a compara- 
tively limited extent. He will often, therefore, awake attention anew, 
by interrupting his didactic train of thought, and proposing questions 
to be answered by one or all of his audience ; he will resort, as often 
as he can, to visible illustrations, to the use of the blackboard, to the 
introduction of examples and exercises for simultaneous practice, and, 
occasionally, to an anecdote of personal experience or observation. 
His aim, in a word, will be to throw" all possible interest into his lec- 
ture, yet to leave his class fresh in mind and feeling, at the close. 

Means of securing attention. — He is a model teacher, also, in other 
respects. . He will see to it that, during his lecture, there is no obvious 
inattention indicated by looking around or lolling or whispering : the 
institute, being a model school, may demand of the instructor, on some 
occasions, a sacrifice of his o^^^l personal feelings, in insisting on per- 
fect order and silence, and earnest attention to his subject. It may be- 
come necessary for him, in some instances, to suspend his lecture till 
order is restored, or, if need be, to appeal to the presiding officer for 
the maintenance of order. The desire to communicate, is, in the case 
of some individuals so irresistible as to impel them to break through the 
restraintsof decorum, in the house of God itself. An institute session, 
therefore, cannot be reasonably expected to be always free from such, 
violations of propriety and order. The institute, however, is always to be 
a model of mild but strict management ; and the instructor, whether 
paid or not, has been engaged there to do an appointed work which he 
cannot atford to forego, in pliant or tame accommodation to disorderly 



44 

wills and ill-regulated habits. He will insist on the rule of good 
manners being observed to him personallVj — and remind tiie mem- 
bers of his classes that they, too, ought to "train their pupils to it, — 
'•'Look to the person who speaks to you;" and he, himself will not 
neglect its counterpart, — " Look to the persons whom you address." 
A wandering or a vacant look disables many a learned man from be- 
coming a competent teacher, because he does not use the natural 
means of attracting and securmg attention, — the habit of communica- 
ting, " eye to eye." 

Answers to the leciurer-s questions. — The instructor, as a model 
teacher, will farther see to it that, when he asks a question it is, — if 
practicable, — promptly and distinctly answered, whether the ques- 
tion is put to the whole class or to an individual. He will make it a 
point to keep his list of numbers and names by him, so as to call out 
distinctly an individual, when he wishes. He will see to it, also, 
that the person rises, when named, or when his or her number is an- 
nounced. It is alwa3\s the best practice, on such occasions, however, 
to mention both the number and the name of class members who are 
called up to answer or recite. This is an act of respect due to the 
members individually, and an introduction of them, personally, to all 
the other members. The instructor will not suffer false diffidence to 
interfere with right rules for the general good, or allow hidividuals to 
shrink from actual duty. The principle of a model school forbids all 
such defalcation, under whatever plea. The constitutioii, moreover, 
of some institutes, lays it down as a rule, binding on every individual 
who subscribes it, by entering his or her name on the list of class mem- 
bers, that no member is allowed to decline any duty prescribed by the 
regulations of the institute. No well-regulated school knows of such a 
thing as a dissenting pupil. 

The spirit of nearly every member of every institute which the 
writer has, for several years, attended, has been uniformly that of 
prompt and cheerful compliance with wholesome regulation. But 
feminine timidity and diffident reluctance sometimes throw a momen- 
tary temptation in the way of principle ; and boyish inconsideration, 
in very )'Oung members of the other sex, will sometimes seem to 
make individuals act, for a moment, as if they thought regulation 
incompatible with independence. 

The instructor, like any other teacher, has the control of his class, 
during his teaching hour, and ought to hold the reins of government 
in his hand, though with the skillful and gentle guidance, which 
*' leads the elephant by a hair." In this, as in his leaching, he is 
called to be an example of well-doing. 

Division or Class Exercises. 
Drilling. — When the number of class instructors is sufficient to 
admit of the arranging of the whole body of class members in two 
divisions, for practical drilling lessons, the exercises are either simul- 
taneous, or individual, as the nature of the subject, or the choice of 
the instructor, may decide. They are, of course, principally of the 
latter sort. The instructor's list, in this case, enables him to refer 
to the names of individuals, in the same way as in the questioning 




DIVISION EXERCISES. 45 

on his lecture. His main difficulty here, will be that of obtaining, 
on all occasions, a clear, distinct, and explicit answer or statement ; 
and it becomes important for him, in some instances, to direct the 
attention of individuals to the habit of imperfect utterance, as one of 
the hindrances to school duties, besides being a cause of the loss of 
valuable time. 

Recapitiihtion, — Part of the hour spent in drilling divisions, is, some- 
times, usefully employed in an oral review and recapitulation of the 
previous lecture. Sometimes, a written recapitulation of the whole 
or part of a lecture or lesson, proves a very beneficial exercise. 

The instructor occasionally interrogates class members on the pro- 
per mode of teaching given parts of subjects, and the reasons for 
adopting some methods and avoiding others. Where a difference of 
opinion or theory is known to exist, on certain points, the instructor 
will invite individuals to volunteer concise but clear statements of op- 
posite views. A brief discussion may follow, under the control of the 
instructor, if he deem such a course advantageous. 

Oral and written statements. — In the oral statements and discussions 
which take place in division exercises, females, as well as males, ne- 
cessarily partake, as members of classes and pupils of schools, in all 
other cases, do. The same rule applies to the general exercises 
whether simultaneously or individually performed, which accompany 
the lectures addressed to the whole body of the institute. 

Much benefit, however, is sometimes derived from written commu- 
nications, on various subjects, and at greater length, handed by female 
members to the presiding officer, and read by him to the institute, 
either at the times appropriated to general and miscellaneous busi- 
ness, or read by a class instructor, during his lecture on the subject m 
question. 

Aid in answering questions. — The class instructor, while he will 
properly insist on answers being given, whether simultaneously or in- 
dividually, to all his questions, will, of course, know how to spare the 
embarrassment of individuals, and to aid them in extricating them- 
selves from perplexity in attempting the unwonted task of giving ex- 
pression to thought in the presence of an audience. How to remodel, 
when necessary, the form of an extemporaneous question, and to place 
the idea fairly, though not too fully, before the mind, is a lesson which 
an institute class should occasionally learn from the management of 
their instructor. There is a time for leading questions, as well as one 
for searching questions ; and this fact should be distinctly recognized 
in the instructor's practice. 

When temporary confusion and hesitation have rendered an answer 
indistinct, or partially incorrect, it is the instructor's duty to ask for a 
repetition of it, as one of the indispensable features of model teaching, 
with a view to the influence of mental training, on accuracy of habit 
in thought and expression. Education, in fact, so far as it is restricted 
to intellectual processes, is little else than a series of methods for com- 
municating the power of seeing clearly, in the mind, whether intui- 
tively, or reflectively, and of expressing clearly what is thus seen. 
Practice and repetition, therefore, are, here, as elsewhere, the law of 
progress. 4 



46 

Class Members. 

Their Duties. • 

The duties of persons who become class members of an institute, 
%vilh a view to become better prepared for the ofhce of instruction, as 
a profession,* are, in all respects, similar to those which devolve on 
the pupils or students of any other school or institution. The members 
of classes are required to exemplify, as members of a model school, 
all school virtues and to avoid all school faults, — to exhibit perfect 
punctuality and unfailing regularity of attendance, to maintain strict 
decorum, perfect order, and uninterrupted attention. 

Punctuality and regularity of attendance. — The teacher who has not 
sufficient self-control to be uniformly punctual, can have little influence 
in creating the habit of perfect punctuality in pupils; and the class 
member of an institute who is not ashamed to fail in this point of daily 
duty, proclaims an indifference to what, in the business world, is con- 
sidered a moral defalcation ; and, — what is of deeper moment, — to the 
ordination of the Author of time himself, — whose laws are such that 
the movement of worlds may be calculated, through successive ages, 
with a precision extending to moments, and who has meted out for 
duty, to every human being, every particle of sand in the glass of life. 

Undeviating and regular attendance is not less important, in the 
members of classes at an institute, than perfect punctuality. The in- 
stitute, as a model school, prescribes to its students the subjects to 
which they are to attend. It permits no selection of branches, or of 
hours of attendance. The students at an institute are not always the 
best judges of what branches they need to pursue. An individual may 
not be aware that a given subject, or a given portion of one, is not per- 
fectly understood, or that the mode of teaching it is not perfectly known, 
in detail. An absence from a given lecture or exercise, may leave 
a future flaw in the knowledge or skill of an individual, as regards 
the office of instruction. Nor can the frequent review of elements 
ever be an uninteresting task to a mind possessed of a genuine love 
of knowledge. A single remark from a lecturer, or a single answer 
from a student, may be worth untold sums, for the better discharge 
of daily duties among juvenile classes in the schoolroom. 

A broken and irregular attendance is utterly incompatible with the 
idea of a well-regulated school ; and m this, as in other respects, 
the institute claims to be a model. The practice of occasional at- 
tendance is felt to be one chief hindrance to the successful operation 
of our common-school system of education. The teacher, in the daily 

*A mistake has sometimes been made, by admitting as class members, or 
students, of an institute, persons not occupied in the business of teaching, nor 
intending to be engaged in it. Lidividuals liave thus, unconsciously, intruded on 
the exercises of a strictly professional school, the fimds of whic;h were specilically 
assigned to the advancement of education, by the instruction of teachers. Visitors 
are always welcome at tiie sessions of an institute ; and their presence is higlily 
desirable. But the case is altered when they become students, and take up the 
time and attention due to others, by the very terms in which the pecmiiary means 
of an institute are conferred, whether by the bounty of a state or of a county. 



SUSTAINED ATTENTION. 47 

business of the school-room, feels deeply the bitter task of attempting 
to instruct classes in which there are pupils who are occasionally 
detained from school, and whose want of knowledge, in the parts of 
subjects taught during their absence, causes either irksome toil and 
loss of time in the extra teaching required to bring up their deficiencies, 
or the yet more irksome labor of dragging them on along with the 
class on which they hang as dead weight. Tire class instructor of an 
institute is, sometimes, in this very predicament, when the obligation 
to regular attendance is not duly felt by the members. 

Partial attendance, moreover, is unjust to the feelings or, at all 
events, to the office of class instructors. The board of direction, by 
which the institute is governed, pi-escribes subjects and lecturers 
such as seem best suited to meet the actual wants of schools. To the 
board belong the duties ol decision and selection. Individuals may 
have less need of instruction and aid in some branches than in others. 
But the regular attendance of all, at all the lectures, and their partici- 
pation in all the exercises, enable the directors to feel assured, that 
the work, most important for the improvement of schools, has been 
actually done by all. Nor is there any other satisfactory way in which 
this all important end can be attained. The nature and purposes of in- 
stitutes, render it indispensable to their success, that no student should 
be allowed to assume the liberty of selecting certain branches, to the 
exclusion of others, during the course of instruction. 

It is t)ut a slight evil, in comparison with the benefit of most, that 
some members of an institute class should, occasionally, review what 
is familiar to them. But. in reality, every class instructor usually 
throws a degree of novelty and fresh interest around his subject, by the 
peculiar light in which he presents its details ; and non-attendance, 
while it is a manifest, or, at least, an apparent neglect and slighting 
of labors contributed to the common good, may be the occasion of the 
loss of invaluable suggestions for the guidance of teachers in the du- 
ties of their office, 

111 health is, sometimes, a plea for occasional absence from a lecture 
or an exercise, at an institute. But persons who have not sufficient 
health to attend, regularly, an institute session throughout, have not 
such health as to justify their becoming teachers. Occasional illness, 
is, of course, to be expected in any occupation ; and from such inter- 
ruptions, the attendance at an institute cannot be exempted. 

Uniform attention to instruction and exercises. — Considerations of great 
moment, in regard to individual and professional habit, unite, as 
in the relations already discussed, to require of the members of insti- 
tute classes, a close and sustained attention to all forms of instruction 
and exercise, during every session and every hour. Teachers are, on 
these occasions, required, as students of the institute, but to do what 
they daily demand of their own pupils. The case speaks for itself. 
Without attention, on the part of students, the best school in the world 
is naught. Institute meetings are of service on condition, only, of 
close altention and thorough application, on the part of the class mem- 
bers. It is the duty of the latter, therefore, to abstain from every act 
which tends to make attention wander, and, as students of a model 



48 

school, to fix their minds, with all earnestness, on the subjects and the 
work before them. That bane of schools, whispering, ^jiust be 
shunned, as the snake in the grass under our feet. Writing for the 
purpose of communication, is,"if possible, a worse form of mental 
dissipation and injury. The only rule of safety, for attention, is. The 
eye to the speaker, as long as he speaks, or to the illustration w^hich 
he shows on the black-board or the map. The wandering eye soon 
finds wandering work for the mind. 

In these and similar remarks, the writer has, of course, in view the 
younger and less disciplined minds among the members of institutes. 
To such these hints are not unfrequently of indispensable necessity. 
Too many of our youth who have not yet felt the weight of profes- 
sional responsibility, are, at first, disposed to regard" an institute 
meeting as a social resort, quite as much as a school, and come with 
the expectation of being amused quite as much as instructed. With 
all, however, who have the earnestness of character requisite for the 
office of instruction, the aspect of matter's soon changes ; and the pre- 
vailing characteristic of institute meetings, is, in nearly all cases, a 
close attention, and strenuous application, to all duties devolving on 
the members. 

A wakeful regard is due, likewise, from all the members of an 
institute, to all duties of routine, including attentive listening to all 
announcements from the chair, a prompt, responsive heed to the sound 
of the bell, whether as the signal for returning to occupation, after 
recess, or passing from one duty to another, llie habit, on the part 
of class members, of promptly answering all questions proposed by 
class instructors, whether in their lectures or in the division of exer- 
cises, — and the uniform practice of joining in all simultaneous exercises, 
are of the utmost moment to the success of every institute. No 
institute can admit any silent or "sleeping" partner in its concerns. 
Its benefits, and, therefore, its requisitions, are for all. It is, in this 
respect, truly republican, and perfectly democratic. 

The preceding suggestion refers to the few indi\Tiduals who, al- 
thouo-h they have entered their names, as class members, at the 
opening of an institute, may sometimes be found taking, through inat- 
tention or ignorance, the place of spectators and audience, or, rather, 
of idle lookers-on. A good school is known by nothing more distinctly 
than the immediate and uniform attention and earnest application of 
the pupils to their work ; and an institute ought to be something more 
than what we term merely a good school . 

Deportment. — The success of teachers' institutes is not to be meas- 
ured by the progress of the members, in professional acquisitions, 
merely. The permanence and prosperity of the institution itself, as 
an invaluable aid to the elevation of the teachers' profession, in public 
opinion, is dependent, to a great extent, on the impressions produced 
by the apparent character and immediate effects of institute sessions, 
on the membei-s themselves, and on the community in which they are 
held. The consequences, in some instances, of obvious inattention to 
duty, of whispering and communicating, during lectures and exercises, 
of levity and indecorum at recess-times, have been extremely preju- 
dical to the reputation of institutes, as model schools. 



SOCIAL COMMUNICATION. 49 

The vast majority, it is true, of the members of institute classes, are 
experienced teachers, more likely to suffer from the depressing effects 
of professional formality and dullness, than from opposite causes. But 
the numerous attendance, at institute sessions, of young persons fresh 
from the position of students just emancipated from the daily restraints 
of pupilage, lays every institute meeting more or less open to interrup- 
tions arising from the unintentional but serious evils of inadvertency 
and volatility. The novelty and excitement of the scene, throw some 
minds entirely off their guard ; and the individuals who expect to re- 
quire and maintain perfect order and decorum in their own schools, 
may, sometimes, be found themselves at fault, in one form or other, 
during the exercises of the institute. Too much attention cannot be 
bestowed on the duty of sell-control and self-restraint, by the members 
of a professional school in which all are justly expected to exemplify 
the habits which they desire to form in others. One rule, simple and 
brief, and easy of application, universally, to the deportment of mem- 
bers of an institute, is. Let every thing be done as by the pupil of a 
model school, — a model school, not in name, merely, but in reality. 

A roving eye, a fluctuating attention, a restless or a lounging body, 
careless and noisy movements, are all utterly incompatible with 
studious and earnest application, and even with the possibility of 
mental benefit, during a lecture or an exercise. But the fault of whis- 
pering, or of scribbling a communication, at such times, is not only a 
dereliction of duty and propriety, but an apparent personal disrespect 
to an instructor. The aspect of such things makes, unavoidably, a 
deep impression on the observers, and proves detrimental to the 
interests of an institute. 

Social communication behveen the members of institutes, — Free, social, 
and cheerful communication between the members of institute classes, 
at their recesses, from application, is not only appropriate, but exceed- 
ingly desirable, as an important means of promoting the design of 
such associations, by cultivating, in all, a friendly interest in one 
another, as members of a common profession, dependent, for no small 
share of its success, on the benevolent spirit of mutual interest and 
active cooperation. Such intercourse is the best foundation for the 
existence and prosperity of tow^n and other local associations for pro- 
fessional communication and indi vidual benefit. Personal and friendly 
intimacy between teachers, is, in importance and value to the cause 
of education, next to that which should be cherished between teachers 
and parents. It tends, more than any thing else, to make common 
cause of the great work of early culture, as one of the vital interests 
of society. 

It is, accordingly, one of the first duties of the committee of recep- 
tion, to see that every convenient opportunity be improved for introduc- 
ing the members of the institute to each other, by making the 
requisite inquiries for that purpose. This remark applies to the proper 
introduction of all the members of an institute to each other, but, 
especially, to the case of members who are about to enter on profes- 
sional employment in the same vicinity. 

The way is thus opened for subsequent communication in visiting, 
4# 



50 

occasionally, one another's schools, — a practice which, even in one 
season, does more to promote the prosperity of schools, t^an any 
other step recently taken for the advancement of education ; and one 
which parents and committees are, on due experiment, found ready to 
favor, by granting the occasional half-holiday required for the purpose. 
In many instances, indeed, a whole day is expressly assigned, once a 
month, for such visits • and not a few parents and committees have pro- 
vided their teachers with facilities of conveyance, — to a distance or in 
weather requiring such aid. Every teacher in a town, thus becomes, 
in turn, an instructor of his fellow-teachers, by his success in one, or, 
perhaps, many of those little things which make up the sum of good 
school-keeping and eiTective teaching: since every individual, in thisy 
not less than in other professions^ has his peculiar points of excellence, 
which his own habits of mind and his own experience, have taught 
him. The attainments of one thus become the common property of 
all ; and a happy uniformity of system and method, and a correspond- 
ing diffusion of benefits, are the general result. But all such effects^ 
are dependent on free and friendly communication among teachers. 
Hence the importance, to members individually, of using the opportu- 
nity of institute meetings for forming personal acquaintance, and cul- 
tivating that friendly intimacy which conduces to such ends. 

Important as it is, however, that the recesses and spare hours of 
institute sessions should be improved for the purpose of free commu- 
nication^ and even of social recreation, whether with a view to general 
and useful objects, or merely as a proper relaxation from the tension 
of mind required in close and sustained attention to lectures and 
exercises ; it becomes a matter of the utmost moment that hilarity 
should never be suffered to degenerate into undue excitement, and 
that freedom should know its proper restraints of self and mutual 
respect, on the part of all the members of an institute. Inattention or 
thoughtlessness, in such relations, has sometimes led to unfavorable 
impressions respecting the alleged benefits of institute meetings, and 
m.ade them unpopular in particular places. 

The Influence cf institutes. 

The impression made by the session of an institute, on the minds of 
those in whose vicmity it is held, is a matter to be seriously regarded, 
as affecting not merely the existence and prosperity of the institution 
itself, but, to a great extent, the interests of the profession and of 
society, with reference to general opinion regarding the advantages to 
be derived from the influence of institutes. 

Establishment of permanent schools for the instruction of teachers. — 
Institutes are properly the pioneers of such schools : they are efficient 
temporary substitutes for such professional seminaries. But it is no 
slight part of their value, that they create a demand for higher and 
more durable benefits than they can themselves afford. The conclu- 
sions generally drawn, therefore, from observing the operations of an 
institute, must exert much influence on the general mind, in relafion 
to the probable benefits of a still higher class of professional institu- 
tions, which are apparently destmed to accomplish incalculable good. 



INFLUENCE OF INSTITUTES. 51 

not only to teachers, but, through them, to every family in whatever 
quarter of the Union they are established. Such seminaries become 
permanent securities for a high standard of general education, and for 
improvements in the art of teaching, of which we are>et in the dawn. 
Whatever, therefore, contributes to the success of teachers' institutes, 
becomes a matter of the utmost moment to the advancement of the 
best interests of education, and tells with deep effect, on the mental 
and moral future of society. In this view of his subject, the waiter 
could have wished that the imperfect aid which he now offers to the 
common cause, had been rendered uiniecessary by the existence of 
sornething adequate to a purpose so important, and prepared under 
fitting advantages of time and circumstance, rather than amid inces- 
sant avocations, and at uncertain intervals, secured with difficulty 
from close daily occupation. Having felt the need, however, in re- 
peated instances, of such assistance as he has now endeavored to 
furnish, and yielding to the suggestions of friends of education, desi- 
rous of obtaining a practical guide in their efforts to extend the benefits 
of teachers' institutes ; he has ventured to throw out the preceding 
suggestions, in the hope that, imperfect as they are, they may prove 
conducive to the progress of this new and auspicious form of action, 
which the general desire for improvement in education has assumed. 



The author of this pamphlet would be happy to receive, from the 
friends of education, throughout the Union, such aid as may enable 
him to present, within a few months, in an enlarged edition, a fuller 
view of the whole subject of teachers' institutes. Suggestions from 
individuals will be gratefully received. But a peculiar value would 
be placed on such communications, from official quarters, as may 
render it practicable to prepare a comparative view of the system of 
crperations adopted in the conducting of teachers' institutes, not only 
throughout New England, but in all the States in which they exist. 

Communications may be addressed to the care of Tappan, Whit- 
temore & Mason, 114 \y"ashington Street, Boston. 



APPENDIX. 



FORMS OF CIRCULARS, &c., CONNECTED WITH THE PRAC- 
TICAL BUSINESS OF INSTITUTE MEETINGS. 

The motion for establishing an institute, sometimes originates with 
an individual, whether official or private, who cannot conveniently 
make a previous personal call of invitation, on a number of persons 
large enough to sanction the public calling of a general meeting. In 
such circumstances, aid may be derived from the following 

Form of Circular of Invitation^ for the earliest stage of business connect- 
ed with the establishing of an Institute. 
" Sir, 

" Your presence, at a preliminary meeting of friends of educa- 
tion, to be held at , on , for the 
purpose of taking the requisite measures to establish a Teachers' In- 
stitute, for (the county of ,) is re- 
spectfully solicited." 

[Signed by the county superintendent cf schools, or other person 
who sends the invitation.] 

At the preliminary meeting before mentioned, the only point of prac- 
tical business, after the appointment of a chairman and secretary, is 
the passing of a resolution, authorizing the officers appointed at that 
meeting, to issue a general circular of invitation to the friends of edu- 
cation, throughout the county, with a view to secure as full a primary 
meeting as practicable, for the purpose of proceeding to the first steps 
in the regular organization of the proposed institute. 

Form of a Circular of Invitation to a primary meeting, held for the 

purpose of Organizing an Institute. 
"Sir, 

" You are respectfully invited to attend a primary meeting of 
friends of education, at , on . The object 

of the contemplated meeting, is, to take the preliminary steps towards 
the formation of a Teachers' Institute for the county of 

'•' Your attendance and cooperation — and that of others whom you 
think proper to invite, on the above occasion, — are earnestly solicited." 

[Signed by the county superintendent of schools, by the chairman 
and secretary of the pieliminary meeting, or by three or more persons 
from different parts of the county.] 



54 APPENDIX. 

The business of the primary meeting, after the election of a chair- 
man and secretary, is the appointment of a committee to prepare and 
draught a constitution for the proposed association, and to report to an 
adjourned meeting, if necessary. If no delay is needful, and the 
committee think proper to prepare, immediately, the draught of a con- 
stitution, by adopting any given model, as a precedent, and no objec- 
tion arises to the procedure, the draught is presented, accepted, and 
adopted, and the institute thus organized. 

Draught of a Constitution. 
" Preamble. 

" We, whose names are hereunto subscribed, regarding the advance- 
ment of general education as one of the primary interests of society, 
and the improvement and elevation of schools as the direct means to 
that end; considering, also, the condition of schools as dependent on 
the character and qualifications of teachers, and these latter as de- 
manding suitable provision for the acquisition of professional know- 
ledge, and skill in the vocation of leaching ; convinced, moreover, that 
no measures have been found more immediately conducive to this end, 
than the permanent and extensive establishment of teachers' insti- 
tutes : — 

" Do hereby adopt the following Articles of Coiistitution, for our 
guidance and direction, as an Association formed for the purpose of 
contributing to the advancement of education, and the diifusion of im- 
provement in instruction, — with particular reference to the condition 
of primary and common schools. 

'' Article I. 
'' This association shall be called the ( county) Teachers' 

Institute. 

"II. 
" The immediate design of this association, is, to facilitate the acqui- 
sition of professional knowledge and skill on the part of Teachers. 

" III. 
'' With a view to this end, the ( county) Teachers' Institute, 

shall through its proper officers, take the necessary steps for securing, 
annually or semi-annually, to the teachers of ( county,) the ad- 

vantages of one or more courses of lectures or other instruction, in the 
principal branches of education, usually taught in our common schools, 
and on such other subjects as this Institute may, in that view, deem 
advantageous. 

^'IV. 
'"'All persons who are actually occupied in the office of instruc- 
tion, or who intend to be so occupied, within the (limits of the county 
of ,) may become members of this Institute, by subscribing 

this Constitution. 

'^ The various officers of this Institute, and its honorary members, 



APPENDIX. ^^ 



may be chosen without reference to the restriction mentioned in the 
preceding article. ^^ 

<' All persons who become members of tliis Institute, do, by the 
act of subscribing these Articles of Constitution, pledge themselves to 
the faithful performance of all duties devolving on them, m their rela- 
tions to this association. 



'' The officers of this Institute shall be as follows : a President, 
Vice-President, Directors,* a Correspondmg Secretary, and a 

Treasurer. ^^ ^^^^ • 

"The officers mentioned in the preceding article, shall constitute, 
collectively, an Executive Board for conducting the busmess of this 
Institute. ^^^^ 

" The duties of the President of this Institute, are the following : 
to preside at all meetinos of the Board, and at the Sessions of the in- 
stitute :— at ffie formeiC to discharge all the customary duties ot a 
chairman, in conducting business affairs, or actmg as the executive 
organ of the association, on all requisite occasions ; and, at the latter, 
to perform, in addition, the usual duties of the president of any lite- 
rary or academic institution, in controlling and directing all proceed- 
ings and exercises, during the sessions of the Institute. 

•'X. 
" The duties of the Vice-Presidents, shall be, in case of the absence 
of the President, to discharge, pro tern., all duties otherwise devolvmg 

on that officer. 

,'^XI. 

" The duties of the Directors, are as follows : to render all practica- 
ble aid to the advancement of the objects of this association,— wheth- 
er by special action, assigned by vote of theBoard,-or the exerting 
of a personal influence,-as far as circumstances favor,-m relation to 
the o^ueral purpose of this Institute, in the vicmity of their respective 
residences : and there, as far as practicable, to aid m carrying into 
eflect all special votes of the Board or of the Institute. 

'• XII. 

" The Corresponding Secretary shall, under the direction of the 
President and the Executive Board, conduct all communications be- 
tween this and other Institutes, or other associations formed for purposes 
connected with education,-also, all comiWcations with individuals 
ill sperdal cases deemed proper by the Board or the Institute. The 
Conespondino- Secretary shall also attend to the due transmission to 
tlie Ricordino- Secretary, for entry on his register, of duplicates, or 
originals of all business documents which pa ss through his hands. 

*The^e blanks mav be so filled up that the vice-presidents shall be sufficiently 
mnnerout ?o represent the four principal divisions, or the larger towns of a county, 
and the du-ectors two to every town. 



56 APPENDIX. 

"XIII. 

" The Recording Secretary shall enter, on his record, a (jppy of the 
Constitution of this Institute, as, also, of its By-laws and temporary 
Regulations : he shall keep a record of all the proceedings of the 
Institute at its sessions, and of the Executive Board at their meet- 
ings, — he shall keep a register of all the ofRceis and members 
of'this Institute : he shall, also, under direction of the President or 
the Board, notify all memberss of duties specially assigned them, 
by vote of the Board or the Institute, give due notice of all meet- 
ings of the same, and, during the sessions of the Institute, have pro- 
per provision made for reporting, through the press, the substance 
of all lectures, discussions, votes, and other proceedings of the Insti- 
tute, — subject, however, to the control and direction of the Executive 
Board. 

" XIV. 

'' The Treasurer shall perform all the customary duties of such 
office in other associations, and report, annually or semi-annually, at 
the sessions of the Institute, its pecuniary condition and resources, and 
whatever, in his judgment, may be requishe in connection with such 
interests. 

" XV. 

" The Executive Board are hereby empowered to pass such By- 
laws, in accordance with the preceding articles, as to them may seem 
advisable. 

'^ XVI. 

" The Constitution of this Institute may be revised, amended, or 
altered, at any of its regular sessions, by a vote of two-thirds of the 
members then present." 

At the primary meeting for organization, the business following the 
adoption and subscribing of the constitution, is the election of officers 
by nomination at large, or from the chair, in customary form. 

The remaining business of the meeting, is the passing of a vote 
empowering the Board to announce, through the president, the time 
and place for holding the first session of the institute, and to hold, 
forthwith, or as early as practicable, their own preliminary meeting of 
arrangements for inviting, through the president and secretary, the 
lecturers or instructors to be employed at the first session. 

Form of Invitation to Lecturers and Instructors. 
'' Sir, 

'• By order of the Executive Board of the ( County) 

Teachers' Institute, I am authorized to invite you to give a course of 
lectures and practical instruction, in the department of , 

to the members of the Insfitute, at its session, to be held at , 

and to commence on the day of o'clock. 

The session will continue for* ; and the number of 

*The length of the session, and the number of teachers employed, will decide 
the filling up of these blanks. 



APPENDIX. 57 

lectures and exercises may be such as to occupy hours, 

daily, in. your department. 

" Whatever books you desire to have your classes use, as aids to 
your instruction, it would be desirable to have mentioned to me, as 
early as convenient. In the meantime, I may state, for your guid- 
ance, that, in your department of instruction, the schools in this county 
(or vicinity,) make use of [Here follow the names of text-books.] 

'• An answer to this invitation, at as early a day eis your convenience 
will allow, will greatly facilitate our arrangements, 
'^ I am, &c., 



" Cor. Sec, ( Count}^,) &c." 

When the answers from the lecturers invited, have been received, 
the Corresponding Secretary, under direction of the President, issues, 
as follows, a 

General Circular of Invitation to the Session of the Institule^ addressed 
to Teachers^ Committees^ and prominent friends of Education. 

'' Sir, 

" You are respectfully invited to attend the Session of the ( 
County) Teachers' Institute, to be held at , commencing on 

, at o'clock, and to continue for 

" The Executive Board of the Institute have made the requisite ar- 
rangements for securing courses of lectures and practical instruciion 
from the follov,'ing individuals, on the subjects annexed to their names, 
respectively : 

[A, B., Reading; C. D., Arithmetic, &c.] 

'' A brief, but thorough course of lectures and practical instruction 
on these branches, and on the best modes of teaching them, may be 
expected from each of the instructors named. 

'' These arrangements, it is hoped, will insure to the members and 
students of the Institute, the advantage of eligible opportunities of ad- 
vancing their professional qualifications as teachers, and becoming 
prepared to contribute, still more elfectually, to the improvement cf 
instruction, and the wider diffusion of the benefits of education. In 
addition to the lectures and exercises, will be a course of popular lec- 
tures and discussions, in the evening, on subjects of interest to parents, 
as well as teachers. 

^' The presence of all persons who take a friendly interest in the im- 
provement of education, will be highly conducive to the objects of the 
institute ; and the attendance of yourself and friends, will, it is hoped, 
5 



58 APPENDIX. 

be a source of personal gratification, not less than an aid to the cause 
of education. 

'' By order of the President, • 

" I am, &c., 



" Cor. Sec, ( County, &c." 

A general announcement, such as follows, it is desirable to have in- 
serted in the principal newspapers of the county and state, as soon as 
practicable alter the receipt of answers from lecturers. 

Advertisement of the opening of a Session. 
" ( County) Teachers' Institute. 

" The Board of Managers of the ( County) Teachers^ 

Institute, announce, that a Session will commence at , on 

the day of , at o'clock, and continue for 

The following Instructors have been engaged to conduct the Lectures 
and Exercises, in the different branches of education : — [ 

•] 

" In addition to the above arrangement, there will be popular lec- 
tures and discussions, in the evening, on subjects interesting to teachers 
and parents. 

" All persons occupied in teaching, or expecting to be so occupied^ 
during the coming season, are invited to attend the session, and enjoy 
its advantages, without charge for instruction. 1 he only expenses ini- 
cident to attendance, during the session, are tliose of travelling and 
boarding, and text-books. Persons intending to become members of 
classes, are expected to bring with them paper and other writing mate- 
rials, a slate and pencil, a blank note-book, a bible, and the following 
class-books.* 

"It is particularly to be desired that all who intend to become 
members of the institute, should arrive so eaily as to be punctually in 
attendance, at the opening of the session. 

" Parents, and all other persons who take an interest in education, 
are cordially invited to attend all the meetings of the Institute, as visi- 
tors, and to take part in the discussions following the evening lectures. 

" By order of the Board. 



" Bee. Sec, { County Teachers' Institute." 

*Il is an advantage to have an arrangement made, in season, by which all the 
text-books to be used may be had at a bookstore, or of a temporary agent in the 
place. 



) 



*^*The writer of these pages takes this opportunity of announcing 
his intention of opening, early in April, 1849, in the vicinity of the 
depot of the Nashua and Concord Railroad, at Reed's Ferry, Merrimack, 
N. H., a School for Female Teachers. 



The plan of the school will be described in detail, in a circul 



ar 



which will shortly be issued. It may be sufficient, for the present, to 
mention that the Principal has secured the aid of several experienced 
instructresses, two of whom will be in attendance from the commence- 
ment of the school. Arrangements are made for the three following de- 
partments : 1st, a class for the instruction and training of teachers, in 
adaptation to the circumstances of " summer" and "winter" district 
schools — exemplified in an adjoining model school. 2d, a class for 
the instruction of young ladies, — whether intending to become teachers 
or not, — in the usual branches of education, as taught in schools and 
academies. 3d, a class for the instruction of ladies intending to be 
occupied in teaching at academies and private schools. 

Communications may be addressed, till the date mentioned above, 
" William Russell, Medford, Mass." 



f 



